A way to make a difference

If you are coming to my blog from Runner's World, then you already know that I am getting ready to run my third marathon. I am really looking forward to this because we are going to have friends that I have never met coming in from all over the southeast. It will be great time to meet and put faces to the names and personalities that I have gotten to know through the forum on Runner's World.

However, all the preparation was feeling a bit empty because there has always been a philanthropic component to my marathon preparation.

I had my first real distance running training and ran the Chicago marathon in 2005 with the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

My training and fundraising was more personal when I ran in Houston in 2007. I ran for the American Cancer Society. My Dad had started treatment for colon cancer and a the son of a very good forum friend had suffered a reoccurred of a very aggressive form of childhood cancer. So, I ran Houston for Dad and Cody. The starting line picture from that race is the picture that I use for this blog.

Since that time, Dad has gone into remission, but Cody, Mickey, and their family are still fighting Cody's Neuroblastoma Cancer with everything they have.

On change.org I found a way that you can donate to the Band of Parents. Band of Parents is just what it sounds like. Their mission statement:

We are parents of children diagnosed with a cancer called neuroblastoma who want to help further the research and drug development desperately needed to save more children. Neuroblastoma is an "orphan" cancer; pharmaceutical companies are not developing new treatments because there is not a large enough patient base to make development profitable. Funding from the government is similarly limited. Time is running out for many of our children -- money stands between them and a cure.

As parents, we have banded together to increase public awareness about neuroblastoma and to raise funds for the development of novel therapies. We are working in partnership with a talented and dedicated team of doctors at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) who are fighting to save our children from this deadly disease.

Please link over to the fundraising site and help where you can.