Riding for Roses

My five year old son, Spencer, conned me into agreeing to help him raise $25,000 for the Lance Armstrong Foundation by riding 40 miles in the Ride for the Roses this Fall. It turns out the ride weekend is October 21-23, 2005, and October 22 will be Spencer’s one year anniversary of his diagnosis with leukemia (pre-B-Cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia). About a month ago, I finally fired up the fundraising efforts and set the goal of reaching the $25,000 target by August 31, 2005, giving us a couple of days for panic to meet the actual LAF deadline on September 2. We started running a classic “solicit individuals for donations” fundraising effort. Some mentors and Peloton Project members at the Foundation say that is a really hard way to raise money and you have to organize events and auctions, with entertainment and focus. We did a small National Cancer Survivors Day event on June 5 at Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Church and raised about $1000.

As of this posting, Spencer has raised $5,321.13 for the Lance Armstrong Foundation. Based on the goals we set a month ago, we are one day behind in the low goal of $15,000 or two weeks behind on the $25,000 goal. It’s time to kick it up another notch. If someone donates $101.83 today, we’ll be on track for the low goal.

Events are good. Big events must be better. Long events must be better. So, we are participating in a 21 day event, Tour Watch 2005 to watch the Tour de France, raise cancer survivor awareness, do interviews with media/podcasters, teach people about podcasting, and raise money for the LAF. Join us at Central Market North on July 2-24 between 8 AM and 9 PM for exciting events. My advice is to show up July 2 at noon. We will be viewing coverage of the Tour de France Prologue on a 61-inch HDTV donated by Circuit City. The Discovery Channel may have a crew there filming Lance Armstrong fans, so let’s show them how we celebrate local heros. While you are there, or heck right now, stop by and donate to support cancer survivors and Spencer’s personal Ride for the Roses. We will have information on the Lance Armstrong Foundation, the Peloton Project, and survivorship information. Please, if you are a survivor or know one, stop by our table to see if any of the information would be helpful.

Spencer is five years old. He’s been a fan of liveStrong wrist bands since last year. I have him one. The next day, he opened his piggy bank and got $3 so I could buy him one for the other wrist and both ankles. The liveStrong wrist bands symbolize the fight against cancer and strength of cancer survivors. On October 15, 2004, Spencer began running a fever while Rachel and I were at the LAF Peloton Appreciation dinner to celebrate having raised over $5000 for the LAF last year. A week later, we took him to his doctor, who ran a few tests “just in case” and the blood counts came back way off. On October 22, Spencer had a bone marrow aspiration which confirmed the diagnosis as being leukemia and refined it to be pre-B-cell ALL (and a list of genetic mutations in the cancer, none of which were bad news). After seven days of chemotherapy, Spencer was in remission, but his treatment lasts until the end of 2007.

I have long been a fan of Lance Armstrong, both as a cyclist and as a cancer survivor. He transformed his own cancer into 6 (Lance and the Discovery team: make it 7!) Tour de France victories and created the Lance Armstrong Foundation to help support other cancer survivors. Lance has been displaced on my personal hero podium by Spencer. His resilience, spirit, and desire to live life have been inspirational to me. I hope you’ll read my blog and see some of that, and I hope you will donate to support cancer survivors and Spencer’s personal Ride for the Roses.