In 2011 when my son Lincoln was diagnosed with leukemia, a form of childhood cancer, my world was changed forever. I was one of those people who were unaware of the fact that kids are threatened every day by this relentless disease. After a few months of eye opening and heart wrenching facts about the devastation of this disease, and lack of funding for pediatric cancer research, I relinquished all of my fears and faced this giant in battle by sharing our son's story to raise awareness with friends through social media. Later in 2012 I began to see some of my friends posting their miles on facebook and I started to think about running again. In January 2013 I started running and asked some of my friends if we could add up our miles together to see if we could run 2900 in a virtual cross country tour to the White House. I would track our activity in a facebook event in hopes that we could complete the tour by September.
As the story goes, we not only ran 2900 miles, but as the event developed over the year and over 3500 people joined the virtual tour, I booked a flight and joined the same number of friends that began the journey and finished the tour in front of the White House, with over a quarter of a million childhood cancer awareness raising miles!
The event that concluded on September 1st, 2013 would begin again at the strike of midnight on January 1st, 2014 with a goal of 1,000,000 awareness raising miles by September, where we would again meet in front of the White House again during CureFest 2014.
Last year as we approached the final 50 days before we reached the White House, I lead out as the host of this virtual event to try to get as many people to Follow Me in raising awareness until I reached the end. This year I will extend this challenge to run 100 days (including some biking and other activities) to all of those who have joined the event in our pursuit of reaching our 1 million mile goal. I will arrive at the White House on Sunday September 21st during the CureFest event to join hundreds of people in raising awareness before our government, and our countries leaders.
As I lead out in the 2014 event, I will be running and cycling in a number of races to raise awareness and donations to help our kids in their time of need. I will be looking for sponsors all across the country to support me and my vision for the event this year. One of the fundraisers I am doing this year during the Oregon marathon is for the Children's Cancer Association. The CCA has been there for my son since the very beginning of his journey and his Chemo Pal has been there for almost every appointment. My fundraising goal for the CCA is $2014 to help bring joy to our kids in the fight every day. Here is the link to my fundraiser to help me reach my goal by the end of September. http://www.active.com/donate/CCA2014/followme2014
I will also be running the Oregon Hood to Coast Relay, the Washington CF Cycle for Life and the final Run to the White House in the coming months to donate more miles to the event.
I want to keep inspiration my motivation for running these races and if you would like me to dedicate a day to your child, send a picture or share your story, you can email me at ricksson33@yahoo.com with the subject Inspired By Kids. If you would also like to sponsor me with any shirts, awareness wrist bands or other items from your organization, I would be happy to wear them during the virtual event and share pictures for your child, or childhood cancer organization. My shipping address is 9195 Portland RD NE, Salem OR 97305. If you would like to donate in any other way, please email me at ricksson33@yahoo.com
I am looking forward to the 100 day countdown starting June 14th, to reach the White House in 2014 and to see all of those leading the way in this movement to make childhood cancer research a National Priority!
The event that concluded on September 1st, 2013 would begin again at the strike of midnight on January 1st, 2014 with a goal of 1,000,000 awareness raising miles by September, where we would again meet in front of the White House again during CureFest 2014.
Last year as we approached the final 50 days before we reached the White House, I lead out as the host of this virtual event to try to get as many people to Follow Me in raising awareness until I reached the end. This year I will extend this challenge to run 100 days (including some biking and other activities) to all of those who have joined the event in our pursuit of reaching our 1 million mile goal. I will arrive at the White House on Sunday September 21st during the CureFest event to join hundreds of people in raising awareness before our government, and our countries leaders.
As I lead out in the 2014 event, I will be running and cycling in a number of races to raise awareness and donations to help our kids in their time of need. I will be looking for sponsors all across the country to support me and my vision for the event this year. One of the fundraisers I am doing this year during the Oregon marathon is for the Children's Cancer Association. The CCA has been there for my son since the very beginning of his journey and his Chemo Pal has been there for almost every appointment. My fundraising goal for the CCA is $2014 to help bring joy to our kids in the fight every day. Here is the link to my fundraiser to help me reach my goal by the end of September. http://www.active.com/donate/CCA2014/followme2014
I will also be running the Oregon Hood to Coast Relay, the Washington CF Cycle for Life and the final Run to the White House in the coming months to donate more miles to the event.
I want to keep inspiration my motivation for running these races and if you would like me to dedicate a day to your child, send a picture or share your story, you can email me at ricksson33@yahoo.com with the subject Inspired By Kids. If you would also like to sponsor me with any shirts, awareness wrist bands or other items from your organization, I would be happy to wear them during the virtual event and share pictures for your child, or childhood cancer organization. My shipping address is 9195 Portland RD NE, Salem OR 97305. If you would like to donate in any other way, please email me at ricksson33@yahoo.comI am looking forward to the 100 day countdown starting June 14th, to reach the White House in 2014 and to see all of those leading the way in this movement to make childhood cancer research a National Priority!
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