This is a personal and heartfelt plea...............as the Lance Armstrong Foundation says:
"Unity is Strength, Knowledge is Power, Attitude is Everything."
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Since retiring, my life has been transformed in many ways. Chief among those transformations is my work with the Lance Armstrong Foundation; combining my passions for bicycling and for fighting and defeating cancer.
After an incredibly inspiring LiveStrong Challenge bicycle/fundraising ride in Portland, Oregon in July of 2006 (70 tough miles on the bike!) I was fortunate to be chosen as a delegate to the first LiveStrong Summit in Austin, Texas last fall. Along with 800 other delegates, all committed to fighting and defeating cancer, I pledged to develop a Personal Action Plan to be implemented upon my return home.
My plan involves presentations to community, school and employee groups; serving on a Colorectal Cancer Coalition locally, developing and staffing exhibition booths and riding once again in the LiveStrong Challenge 2007 in Portland.
The statistics are frightening…Cancer is now the number one killer of Americans under the age of 85. It will take 1500 people – today and every day – from our lives. It will strike more than 40% of the American population. Right now there are more than 10 million people living with cancer in United States, and it is estimated that close to 1.3 million more will be diagnosed this year alone.
And I can guess without fear of being wrong that each of you fits those statistics in some way. We are all touched and tested by cancer.
I am in the final weeks of fundraising for the LiveStrong Challenge and I Need Your Help! Each and every individual contribution regardless of size is both critical to the fight and greatly appreciated.
You may donate online at my personal LiveStrong Challenge webpage:
http://portland07.livestrong.org/marcia_illian_banta
(or go to http://portland07.livestrong.org/ click on Donate and search by Marcia Banta)
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