Hello friends and family,

First off, thank you so much for your generous donation to my Pan-Mass ride last year! Thanks to donors like yourself, we were able to raise $8,464 for cancer research in 2024, bringing our 19-year total fundraising to $90,367. I can’t express enough gratitude to you for your past contributions, and the Pan-Mass Challenge can't exist without donors like you. Thanks to all the ride's donors, the PMC crossed the $1 billion threshold last year, having raised a total of $1.047 billion since 1980! With that in mind, my goal is to raise $9,700 this year to cross our $100,000 threshold. Now, with the PMC ride just a couple of months away, I’m asking for your support again. As usual, I’ll bike my way through 162 miles from Wellesley to Provincetown this year in an effort to drum up as much fundraising for cancer research and treatment as possible.

For online donations, please go to: https://www2.pmc.org/egifts/GB0133

Every cent goes directly to fighting cancer through the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and the mission to eradicate cancer is important as ever in 2025. PMC is the largest single contributor to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a worldwide leader in cancer research, making the event a critical driver of progress in this field. I hope that we can continue to fight cancer together again, particularly in the wake of major challenges in the world of research this year. The Pan-Mass Challenge isn’t possible without donors like yourself, and any support makes a great difference! 

This year will mark my 19th total year of riding and 13th year riding an adult ride, as I first started with a five-mile PMC Kids route in 2007 and switched to the adult routes in 2013. These rides continue to be in honor of my grandfather, Alfred Oberhardt, my neighbor Harry Adamian, and my grandmother Dode Barker, who fought and defeated breast cancer during her lifetime. 

If you'd prefer to donate via a check, please make the check payable to “Pan-Mass Challenge” and mail it to me at 20 Melvin Road, Arlington MA 02474. Also, please keep in mind that many employers can match your donation and certain health insurance providers are willing to as well. Many companies that match donations are listed in a database on PMC's website here: https://www.pmc.org/ways-to-give/matching-gifts. If you are able to contribute a matching donation, please let me know if you can! PMC had some difficulties tracking matches last year, so I'd want to make sure they all go through correctly. 

Thank you so much!

George Barker