Inspiration on Two Wheels - I need your help!

Hello readers! I've had a very busy summer and I promise lots of good material to post when things calm down for me outside of the blogosphere. But right now, I need your help!

This weekend I'll be riding in my second annual Pan-Massachusetts Challenge. The PMC, as it is known, is a charity bike ride raising money for life-saving cancer treatment and research at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. The ride is a two day event and is supported by thousands of volunteers and hundreds of corporate sponsors. One hundred percent of all rider-raised funds go directly to the Jimmy Fund; none of your generous donation will go to event overhead. There are few, if any fund raising events that can claim that 100% of the money raised goes directly to the charity.

The event is in two days and I still need to raise $1,000 - will you please help? To make your 100% tax-deductible donation online, please follow this link:

https://www.pmc.org/egifts/giftinfo.asp?EgiftID=SD0131

Any and all help is greatly appreciated. Will you go out for tacos instead of filet mignon and donate the different to The Jimmy Fund? Will you buy a Sam Adams instead of a Cosmopolitan and donate the difference to The Jimmy Fund? Will you order a salad instead of a three course meal and donate the difference to The Jimmy Fund? Will you eat in instead of going out altogether and donate what you would have spent to the Jimmy Fund?

From the Pan-Mass Challenge web site:

Cancer Facts & Figures

Cancer is a group of diseases characterized by either the runaway growth of cells or the failure of cells to die normally. Cancer can arise in any organ of the body and strikes one of every two American men and one of every three American women at some point in their lives.

Each year, nearly 1.4 million new cases of cancer are diagnosed in the United States, a figure that does not include the 900,000 cases of skin cancer diagnosed annually. Cancer is the second leading cause of death (after heart disease) in the United States, accounting for 560,000 deaths every year. While more than 3 million people are diagnosed with cancer around the globe each year, the figure most likely represents just a percentage of people who have the disease but remain undiagnosed due to decreased access to healthcare in different parts of the world. There are more than 100 different varieties of cancer, which can be divided into six major categories. Carcinomas, the most common type of cancer, originate in tissues that cover a surface or line a cavity of the body. Sarcomas begin in tissue that connects, supports or surrounds other tissues and organs. Lymphomas are cancers of the lymph system, the circulatory system that bathes and cleanses the body's cells. Leukemias involve blood-forming tissues and blood cells. As their name indicates, brain tumors are cancers that begin in the brain, and skin cancers, including dangerous melanomas, originate in the skin. Cancers are considered metastatic if they spread via the blood or lymphatic system to other parts of the body to form secondary tumors.