This weekend I will embark on my 14th Pan-Mass Challenge to help raise money for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Thanks to the doctors at the “Dana” I've been cancer-free now for 30 years and feel strongly that as long as I have the ability to help fight cancer, I'll do it, even if it means riding my bicycle several hundred miles! Founded in 1980, the Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC) is an annual 2-day/200 mile bike-a-thon that today raises more money for charity than any other single event in the country. To date, the PMC has raised over $500 million for cancer research.

Every year I do the PMC, I do it for someone special. This year I am riding in honor of two people: my dear friend Karen Collari Troake's father Dick, who succumbed to his cancer last August just after the PMC, and my dear family friend Anna Lopez who passed earlier this year after battling a variety of cancers for the past 10 years. The list of people that I know who have battled cancer are special to me because of the pain and suffering they have endured through no fault of their own. Most have made it through, including me, but many did not, like my sister Maria.

My goal is to raise as much money as we can so we can help wipe out cancer and help those who are fighting this awful disease. Like last year, 50% of all the funds I raise will go directly to Dr. Brian Wolpin's lab at DFCI specifically for acinar cell carcinoma research. This is the lab that helped put my dear friend Don Wexler's cancer into remission three years ago!! The remaining 50% will go directly to the DFCI through its Jimmy Fund. That's right 100% of my fundraising will go to the DFCI with no deductions!!

This year I have set a minimum goal of raising $7,500 and need your help.

I'll do the riding -- all you have to do is contribute to my fundraising effort!