Off to an amazing start

Just one month into my 2018 Dana Farber Marathon Challenge fundraising and I am one third of the way to my goal to raise $20,000 for innovative cancer research! I have been busy, busy, busy - training for the Route 66 marathon, thinking of creative fundraising ideas on my long runs, sending out emails, and social media posts, and letters, ordering photo cards with my link and my message on them, and I ordered DFMC mittens to sell as a fundraiser. HUGE THANK YOU to everyone that has donated already!!!! I cannot do this without the amazing support of my friends and family and coworkers.

October is Breast Cancer Awareness month and I have been blasting my social media accounts with facts about the disease and including my link. I've also seen other fundraisers going on for the month for other charities. BIG difference between all those other charities and DFMC - Dana Farber's Marathon team raises money specifically for the Claudia Adams Barr Program and that program requires that 100% of every dollar raised goes directly to researching innovative treatments and cures. No administrative fees, no money for advertisement or promotional materials, no money for salaries of executives, no travel and expense money for program staff. If you look into the details of all the 'other' charities out there a very small percent of the money you give them actually goes to the cause you are supporting. One example I saw yesterday after a little digging on their website, gave only $800,000 out of almost $3 million to grants for breast cancer screenings.

Here is a direct example of how your donation to my DFMC page can make a difference:

Discovering New Treatments - Explaining how drugs like Tamoxifen have improved breast cancer survival rates by 33% in significant numbers of women, leading to the possible discovery of additional treatments with even better outcomes for people with breast cancer.
Myles Brown, MD, used Barr funding in 2002-‘03 to make the first genome-wide map of all genes that estrogen controls. This has enabled scientists for the first time to understand why certain drugs have been so effective in treating breast cancer, including the marked improvement in survival for women whose breast cancers respond to tamoxifen and other drugs that block estrogen. Dr. Brown’s work is now expected to lead to new drugs and treatments for cancers that target critical pathways in breast cancer. His team has used this information to discover new ways to treat breast cancers that don’t respond to Tamoxifen.

Tomorrow morning I am planning on going out for a 16 mile training run. I have 5 weeks left to train for my next marathon. 185 days until I line up in Hopkinton with 36,000 other runners to make the 26.2 mile journey to Boylston St. It will be 5 years since the bombs went off and I plan on crossing that finish line triumphant not only in completing the race, but doing so for a cause much bigger than personal achievement. I want to make a difference. Together with the support (and yes, donations) of everyone I know and even people I don't know, we all CAN make a difference. Please consider giving whatever you can, share my link with your friends, whether it's $5 or $50 - EVERY dollar can make a difference! DONATE TODAY!