Midnight Oil

[Powderworks] NMOC: Sponsor me for the Pan-Mass Challenge!

Kate kate@dnki.net
Fri, 09 May 2003 22:47:43 -0400


Dear Fellow P'workers,

I thought I'd take advantage of the recent activity on the list to do some 
shameless fundraising - particularly since I dissed golf in the name of 
this cycling event last spring.

As many of you know, I'm a pretty avid cyclist.  Lazy, but avid.  At the 
beginning of August I will join three-thousand other cyclists in 
Sturbridge, Massachusetts for a two-day, nearly two-hundred mile journey to 
Provincetown with the Pan-Mass Challenge.  I am asking for your sponsorship 
for this important fundraising event for the Dana Farber Cancer Center's 
Jimmy Fund.

The Pan-Mass Challenge annually raises over $16,000,000 - and then hands 
over more than 92% of the take to the Jimmy Fund.  It accounts for nearly 
half the Jimmy Fund budget.  The Jimmy Fund, founded by Dr. Sydney Farber 
in 1948, funds both research and care at the Jimmy Fund Clinic.  Designed 
specifically for the comfort and convenience of pediatric cancer patients 
and their families, the Jimmy Fund Clinic follows Farber's "total patient 
care" philosophy, assuring that a patient's psychological, family and 
spiritual needs, as well as their medical needs, are met.  The clinic cares 
for children from all over the northeast and even all over the world.  For 
more information go to http://www.jimmyfund.org/

As an environmental public health scientist, not to mention precautionary 
principle aficionado and anti-nuclear activist, I professionally strive to 
change the environmental conditions in the world that lead to the 
development of such horrible diseases as childhood cancer.  Yet even if we 
one day manage to remove all cancer causing agents from the environment, 
there will still be kids who will develop cancer - kids who will need 
treatment and psychological, social, and family support.

I considered doing the Pan-Mass Challenge for the past two years, but there 
was always some excuse or even damn good reason getting in the way.  This 
year I will ride in consideration of my dear friend Joe, his wife Julie, 
and in memory of their daughter Megan.  Megan was like a dandelion - 
bright, ever present, and tenacious - yet ephemeral all the same.  She died 
in early December after a long battle with brain cancer, ten days shy of 
her second birthday - so I was already crying pretty hard when I found out 
the Oils had called it a day too.  The night she died I dreamed that I had 
sewed her a dandelion dress and took her to a park.  She ran away over a 
hill and all that was left was fluff on the wind.  As I ride this double 
century in her honor I will certainly see many, many dandelions to remind 
me of my mission and speed me on my way.

The link to pledge on line is http://www.pmc.org/egifts/ and I am rider 
number KA0041.  Thank you in advance for your kind support.

With love for all,
Kate