Dear family and friends,

In less than 1 weeks I will join my Pook's Pedalers team mates in Wellesley, MA to ride once again in the Pan Mass Challenge. This will be my 13th year riding with the PMC! In 2019 I thought it would be hard to calculate the many hundreds of thousand dollars Pook's Pedalers has contributed to the Dana Faber Cancer Institute. Hard yes, but not impossibe. Judith Souweine, our intrepid leader, with a little help from the PMC staff, figured out that Pook's Pedalers has raised over $1,000,000 since we began riding back in 2007!

I began to ride the PMC in 2007 for a couple of reasons: my sister-in-law, Kristin Lake, an athlete and non-smoker, died of lung cancer in 1997 at the age of 46. I'd been successfully treated for breast cancer in1999, benefiting from a recent tecnological procedure, the centinal node biopsy. Finally, my good friend Jonathan Souweine, aka. Pook, had recently undergone a bone marrow transplant, as part of his treatment for an agressive form of lukemia. Riding my bike for 2 days, 164 miles, from Wellesley to Provincetown to raise money for cancer research just seemed like the right thing to do. It still does!

This past year presented its own series of challenges. Some of us lost siblings, friends and a beloved professor to cancer. Last October, our dear friend, Alessandra (Shasha) Land, was diagnosed with invasive breast cancer, less than a week after she and her husband Matthew learned that Shasha was pregnant with their first child. Shasha is being treated at MD Anderson in Houston,Texas, but one has to imagine these world class institutes share research with one another. Luca Marcus Land was born in March. While there is still treatment in the offing, as of late May Shasha was cancer free.

That is why Pook's Pedalers are riding again! Together with 3,000 cyclists and 4,000 volunteers, we wil raise money for life-saving cancer research and treatment at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI). The PMC raises more charitable dollars than any other single event in the country - $595 million since 1980 and $48 million last year alone. This year's goal is $52 million. Your donation brings us Closer by the Mile to ending cancer.

100% of your donation will go to cancer research and treatment at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. I have made a personal commitment to raise $6,000.00. I hope you will support my fundraising effort.

Please give generously either to the following link: http://profile.PMC.org/JS046. Or you can send me a check made out to PMC, Sallie Deans Lake, 35 Washington Ave. Northampton, MA 01060

I hope I can count on your support

Every donation truly brings us closer by the mile.

Thank you, as always, for your support and friendship,
with love Sallie

The Pan-Mass Challenge only uses your personal information to thank you and will not share it with any other organizations.