2025 will mark the 13th Pan Mass Challenge ride for Team Grateful Living with a two-day, 162-mile ride from Wellesley to Provincetown, MA. This year I will celebrate my 70th birthday and my 13+ year survival by riding with my teammates surrounded by thousands of highly motivated PMC riders. Training gets a bit more challenging with increasing age, but I am back in the saddle again.

I REMAIN LIVING PROOF of the power of scientific discovery, novel medications, and a stem cell transplant performed at Dana Farber. I am grateful for my health and for the love and support of my family, friends, physicians and all who contribute to this cause.

Multiple myeloma is now the 2nd most common blood cancer in the US currently affecting 180,000 people with over 35,000 newly diagnosed each year. It remains an incurable cancer, but the treatments continue to evolve, allowing many (like me) to live normal lives. Following my diagnosis, I have encountered numerous individuals affected by myeloma, and I have witnessed the significant impact this disease has had on the lives friends, colleagues, and family members.

Our ride will support the Multiple Myeloma Clinical Research Program at Dana Farber headed by Dr. Paul Richardson. The Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center and LeBow Institute for Myeloma Therapeutics at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute develop new treatments for myeloma and provide comprehensive care over 5,000 patients with multiple myeloma yearly. These two centers encompass a large team of laboratory-based and clinical investigators who are striving to find more effective therapies for multiple myeloma. The team has participated in both the development and testing of 34 novel drug combinations resulting in FDA approval and an improvement in survival from 56.9% to 65% over the past decade.

Raising money for research funding is more critical today than ever before with the recent loss of Federal funding to NIH and to research centers across the country. It is evident that both the prognosis and treatment options vary significantly based on the genetic and racial profile of the individual patient and the clone of myeloma cells, thus clinical trials utilizing novel medication combinations in diverse populations are critical to improving survival in patients with multiple myeloma.

I am writing today to ask for your financial support in my fundraising effort, and for your moral support in my training and riding. Over the past twelve years, I have raised $315,410 with your support and Team Grateful Living has raised $1,055,495.47. We were thrilled to surpass the $1 Million mark last year as the PMC surpassed the incredible goal of $1 Billion raised since the inception of the ride in support of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute

Please join us in making a difference in the treatment of multiple myeloma. As a donor to my ride, 100% of your donation will go directly to fund the doctors and scientists working in the Myeloma Clinical Research Program at DFCI. We hope that within our lifetimes, mutiple myeloma will be considered a curable disease.

If you would like to make a donation in support of my ride, please use the following link: https://donate.pmc.org/JH0402.

With deep gratitude, Jo