Pan-Mass Challenge -

August 5, 2004
By Billy Starr

AT 25 YEARS of age I had already lost my mother, uncle, and cousin to cancer. My grief channeled itself into sports: I hiked, climbed, and biked. Sweating it out was cathartic. The sweat and grief led to an idea. I would ask my friends to join me on a long-distance cycling pilgrimage across the state in the name of cancer research.

With 35 friends I set off on a Saturday morning in September from Springfield. By Sunday night we had all lost the route -- at least once -- and we ran out of food, but by cycling 220 miles, we raised $10,200 for the Jimmy Fund. The Pan-Massachusetts Challenge was born.

Now, 25 years later, the challenge raises and contributes two to three times more money to charity than any other athletic fund-raising event in the nation. The initial pack of 36 cyclists has grown into a team of 4,000 who hail from across the nation and countries in Europe and Asia. This year the challenge will bring its 25-year Jimmy Fund contribution to $120 million. The event generates nearly 50 percent of the Jimmy Fund's annual revenue.

Athletic fund-raising and event programming have matured as well. The "a-thon" industry now exceeds $1 billion annually in this country, and almost every major health and human service organization and institution uses its power to generate the revenue that makes the very core of their work possible. Millions of people each year walk, ride, swim, golf, run, skate, ski, and climb to raise dollars for charities in every state. From research to legal advocacy, if there is a cause, there is an athletic vehicle funding it.

Perhaps it is no surprise that the a-thon industry was born in the late '70s and found its real foothold in the '90s. We were a generation raised on the results of protest. When we wanted change, we marched on campuses, across cities and towns, and all the way to the White House. We lay down in the streets. We stood up for our rights by sitting down in offices. We learned that our bodies were tools for change.

The impact we had on such issues as civil rights and equality for minorities and women, the quality of the air we breathe and the water we drink, and laws that protect us from violence fueled a generation into believing that the collective power of the people is stronger than any government agency.

A unified force of people made whole by the belief in a single mission has the ability to improve the human condition.

Almost immediately after the first Pan-Massachusetts Challenge in 1980, I realized I had tapped into something more powerful than the money we had raised. The weekend had been an inspiration, and people found different ways to articulate its meaning. Everyone provided input as to how the event might be improved. And why not? The 1980 the event was a sketch that needed fleshing out. They volunteered, they brought their life skills to the cause, and they worked long hours to put their own imprint on the challenge. Truckers took their companies' vehicles on the road for it. Caterers became food distribution managers for an event that spans 46 towns. Nurses brought first aid and compassion to aching muscles and bruised bodies. They all wanted to improve the product and grow the gift to the Jimmy Fund.

And then they took all of this energy, all of the passion derived from helping others, back to their places of work, to their families, and into their communities. Their charge sparked others, and every year, more and more people wanted to help in some way. The wheels continue to spin, and the motion is perpetual. At the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge, we like to say that when you ask people to donate money or time to a cause, you are empowering them to feel good about themselves. This is, perhaps, among the greatest gifts anyone can give another human being.

This year the challenge will be supported by nearly 2,000 volunteers, many of whom work year-round, to make the event the best it can be and to ensure that the it gives as much money as possible directly to the Jimmy Fund; in 2003, that sum was 93 cents of every rider-raised dollar.

Work and family are at the core of the human condition, but surrounding that core is a need to give back. As we mature, we realize how fortunate we are to be able to ride, run, swim, or walk by choice and under our own power. We need to make a difference in the world around us. Athletic fund-raising events leverage this basic human condition, and in doing so, they make the world a better place.

Billy Starr is the founder, executive director, and among the top fund-raisers of the Pan-Massachusetts Challenge. He will ride in the event for the 25th time on Aug. 7 and 8.

© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.