Dear Friends:
A little later this summer, on August 2 and 3, I will participate in my 20th Pan Mass Challenge ride to raise funds for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. The PMC has raised more than $1.2 Billion Dollars for the Dana Farber since the inception of the PMC and has become the largest and most succesful athletic fundrasing event in the world!
If you are getting this email, you are a repeat donor, and for that I am very grateful. I will try to make this brief.
1. Over the past 20 years, my family and I have raised more than $300,000 for the Dana Farber. My oldest daughter, Taylor, is getting married on 8/16, and I will be the only one riding from my family. All the more reason to donate more to me, as you will not get solicited by my family! My fundraising goal of $30,000 is ambitious but with all of your help, I can get there!
2. Taylor is healthy—Yay! She had her 5th stem cell re-birthday in late June. She is skiing lots, working out, traveling all over the world for vacations and remote weddings, engagements, and more, and she is working very hard as a rising middle sales manager at Klaviyo, a software company in Boston. I continue to ride in her honor, especially because one of the chemotherapies that helped to shrink her tumor dramatically used Dana Farber as a key clinical trial site.
3. After volunteering as a short order BBQ chef and burger server last year at the 2-day PMC as I continued to recover from an illness, I am back to health, traiining hard on my bike with my PMC teammates and friends, and will ride both the 192-Mile, 2-day PMC from Sturbidge to Provincetown, as well as the 50-mile rugged PMC UNPAVED gravel ride in the Berkshires in late September.
4. Cancer has afflicted us all. In the past two years, I lost my father-in-law, Barry Brooks to fast moving pancreatic cancer, a close friend Brett Cohen to Glioblastoma, several close friends are battling prostate cancer, skin cancer, and other cancers, and the two PMC Teams I ride for, Team 3G and Team Brainstorms, were founded in honor of loved ones who continue to battle their cancers. Both of my PMC Teams are doing phenomenal work fundraising, and both of my Captains, Amy Fradkin (Team 3G) and Stephanie Vail (Team Brainstorms) were honored by the Boston Celtics on the parquet as Heros Among US this past Celtics season. Amy's husband Gregg ( thus the three G's) and Steph's son, Declan, continue their valiant fight of their cancers.
I thank you all for your anticipated donations. I am well aware that most of you are solicited by many riders. What counts is that you donate to the cause, and not to me as the rider. I thank you from the bottom of my heart! Mike.
