Dear Friends,

In 2021, I made a decision to ride in the PMC - one of the best decisions I made in my life. This year again, I will be riding in the Pan Mass Challenge bike ride to support Dana Farber’s mission to cure cancer. I am proud to be park an amazing team of like-minded individuals, AKA Team Crank. Team members are passionate about two things: biking and fighting cancer. I ask you for your support and a donation.

Do you know anyone who is fighting cancer, in remission from cancer, or passed away from cancer? I do. Not only as a Nurse Practitioner, a healthcare provider, but as a friend and as a family member.

Two years ago, a dreaded phone call came from my dear friend Becky Caron, So, I found a lump in my breast... Becky is 36, a mother of a beautiful now 6 year-old boy, a registered flight nurse on a rescue plane in Alaska, and has an aggressive form of breast cancer for which she underwent chemotherapy, radiation therapy, bilateral mastectomy and is about to undergo hysterectomy. She is doing very well thanks to decades of tireless cancer research. My grandmother was not so fortunate: she passed away 20 years ago from stomach cancer, suffering in pain until the very end. Last year, one of my great friends lost his father to stomach cancer after a tough battle. Advances in cancer research and treatment allowed him to have frour years with his family, to meet his newest grand daughter Nina.

Why donate?

• 100% of your tax-deductible donation goes directly to finding a cure.

• Dana Farber depends on the PMC, which raises over 50% of DF’s charitable donations.

• Every dollar you donate will be matched by the generous support of the Warren Alpert Foundation, up to $200,000!

• Dana Farber was critically involved in 35 of the most recent 75 new cancer drugs approved by the FDA.

• All funds will be dedicated to fund two exciting novel investigational treatments for hard to treat pediatric cancers—PGLA (brain tumors), led by Dr. Mimi Bandopadhayay, and T-ALL (a rarer form of childhood leukemia), led by Dr. Kimberley Stegmaier:

• New treatments will help support kids battling cancer PGLA and T-ALL

Donating is easy—click here https://donate.pmc.org/AO0095 , or via Venmo, or you can send a check payable to the Pan Mass Challenge to me at Belmont Medical Associates, 725 Concord Ave, Cambridge, MA 02138. I would be honored to ride in support or memory of our loved ones who have been touched by this disease. Send me their names and they will be in my thoughts every mile that I ride.

Consider donating—together we can make the prognosis better for all of our loved ones so one day we can say that cancer is just a memory. Please, send my email to your friends and family. Any donation counts, especially this year, and all donations will be matched!

Thank you for your consideration and my best,

Anna Ost