Dear Friends and Family,
After my wife Celia was diagnosed with cancer, I began riding in the Pan-Mass Challenge at the urging of a very close friend, who had already participated in over ten PMC rides after his wife Sally (also our dear friend) was taken by ovarian cancer. Fortunately, thanks to the Boston medical community, Celia has been cancer-free since 2007. Unfortunately, there is no shortage of new faces and families that are impacted by this ruthless disease. In our family, we lost our beloved aunt and uncle to cancer within just two months of each other.
PMC is our way of doing what we can to help find a cure, and there is good news. Directly related to research being funded in part by the PMC, two of our close friends are cancer survivors thanks to the immunotherapy technology developed by Dana-Farber. While there are many good stories like this, we need to find a cure and ultimately prevent cancer from destroying so many lives. PMC has grown to be the single largest and most efficient cancer research fundraising event in the country. Literally 100% of every dollar donated goes directly to research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, thanks to the donations of services, equipment, food, facilities and time of over 4,000 volunteers and 6,000 riders.
With this year’s ride and associated donations, we are hoping to achieve two financial goals. The first is seeing the PMC cross the $1,000,000,000 mark (yes, one billion dollars) since its inception. The second goal is seeing our team, Team WillPower (named after our incredible friend John Willett, who we lost to cancer) cross the $1,000,000 mark since our inception in 2017.
Please donate generously and realize your donation will make a difference.
Chris, Celia and Sarah Downey
