Another PMC is just weeks away and this note is being sent woefully late. I may be behind on my solicitation and my training, but I’m nonetheless committed to riding another PMC.

While I’m entering my 7^th year as a rider, the PMC has been around for 30 years.  Over these 30 years over $270,000,000 has been raised in support of the Jimmy Fund/Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.  What has all this money meant?   In an excerpt from the check presentation this past November, Edward J. Benz, Jr., M.D. the President of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute explains;

“This year's Pan-Massachusetts Challenge, the 30th ride since the event’s inception in 1980, is a valuable milestone for measuring how far the PMC has come and how the cause it supports��" cancer research and care at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute��"has progressed in the past three decades…. …The tangible results of this work are present in cancer treatment centers around the world: the first-ever drug treatments for a digestive-tract malignancy known as gastrointestinal stromal tumor; new and better treatments for multiple myeloma; early-warning blood tests for recurrent ovarian cancer; vaccines that help the immune system mount an attack on tumors; new surgical and radiation-therapy techniques, and a host of other advances. In the works is a new generation of therapies directed at specific genetic weaknesses within individual tumors, leading to treatments that are tailored to each patient's disease”.

Yes, the need is still very much there; I can’t help but feel we take two steps forward and one step backwards.  We all continue to hear of friends and family successfully overcoming cancer, yet we continue to hear about others who are in the throws of the battle or worse yet, lose the battle.

For those who sponsored me last year, thank you again very much.  I successfully raised over $4,300 for a 6 year total of $31,000!!!    I hope you will join me again this year and if you haven't in the past, there is no better time to join in than now!   Whatever you are able to contribute would be appreciated. 100% of funds I raise go directly to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.  You can’t find a better return on your donation investment than that!

You may contribute via my personal PMC Link:

http://www.pmc.org/profile/MC0217 

or you may send a check made out to;  Dana Farber Cancer Institute/PMC

(Check with your company to see if they match your donation!)

Mailing address:

Matt Caruso

4 Pershing Road

Salem, MA 01970

Sincerely,

Matt