Steve Weiss Rides 2024 Pan Mass Challenge, as a Virtual Rider. Please help us meet the 2024 donation goal of $75 Million in support of Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston!

TO BE UPDATED:

Dear Family, Friends and Colleagues,

This year, 2023, will be a milestone year for my Pan Mass Challenge event. This year will be my 25th participation in one of the largest and most successful athletic fundraising events in the United States. The Pan Mass Challenge is again planning to “go the extra mile” raising funds for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. Over Pan Mass weekend, August 4 – August 6, I will ride with Team Huckleberry from the New York-Massachusetts border to Provincetown. We will join as a team and a community to raise awareness and funds for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. I deeply appreciate all the donations I have received over the years and am very thankful for every dollar contributed from my very generous supporters, especially in these difficult and uncertain times. Please share my story with your friends and I would greatly appreciate you encouraging their support for the PMC as well. Through the next few months, I will be posting training and ride updates in Strava, Facebook and Instagram as I prepare for the mental and physical challenges riding 280 miles over three straight days.

Please stay safe in all your endeavors.

I hope I can count on your support

The PMC raises more money for charity than any other single event in the country. Since 1980, we have raised more than $900 million with a record $69 million raised in 2022, beating all expectations in a lessened but still pandemic-impacted year! This success is achieved every year thanks to thousands of people riding, volunteering and caring about a cure. And because every penny matters, 100 percent of your donation goes to DFCI.

As this is my 25th Pan Mass Challenge, I want to stretch my fundraising goal to $10,000. My side of the bargain is that I will ride from the western end of Massachusetts to the eastern tip in Provincetown, 280 miles over three days. This goal exceeds my 2022 fundraising by more than 42% and I hope you can help me achieve this ambitious fundraising target. Over my 24 participations I have raised more than $108,000 for the PMC and have been recognized as a Silver Lifetime Fundraiser, passing the $100,000-mark in 2021. Thanks to everyone who has supported this fundraising recognition over my previous 24 participations.

And yet...and yet, the soreness from riding and complaints about the weather are nothing compared to the will and determination of the young and old pouring everything they have into trying to beat this disease. I ride for our Pedal Partners, Kya, Natasha, Anthony and Hannah and all the other kids like them facing this disease. I ride for all undergoing treatment who come out to the road to cheer us for our efforts. I do it for the families struggling with the loss caused by cancer.

I do it for my sister, Judy, still going strong more than 30 years after a tumor was removed from her ovaries. I do it for my brother's mother in-law, Judy, I do it for my sister's mother-in-law, Jeanne, I do it in honor of two of my close friends' parents, Katherine, William and Lillian, each of whom succumbed to the disease. I ride in honor of a Boston co-worker's mother. As of fall 2018, I am riding in memory of my mom, Charlotte, who succumbed to an agressive lung cancer. This year, I ride for members of my wife's family currently fighting this disease.

The list is far too long, all these lives impacted by cancer. It is these personal battles as well as the ones I hear and see during the event that motivate me to go the extra mile as PMC Founder, Billy Starr, would say.

I look forward to your support. Please take a moment to read about the Pan Mass Challenge and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute here Pan Mass Challenge Home.

Thanks for reading.

Steve