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News
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Saturday Bike Ride to Raise Money and Hope
Westport’s John Ragland hopes Saturday’s Connecticut Challenge bike ride will be another inspirig success. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Ed Kiersh for WestportNow.com
By Nina Zipkin
The 400 Connecticut Challenge cyclists pedaling through Westport and 15 other towns Saturday will be raising more than money to support cancer survivors at the Yale Cancer Center’s Hero’s Clinic
Participants in this third annual event, which can mean grueling 100-mile treks for more ambitious riders, are also hoping to raise the hopes of cancer survivors, and to provide them with an opportunity to come together in communities throughout Connecticut.
“Even after getting treatment for their cancers, survivors still have issues, nutrition, mental health, drug side effects, that need to be addressed,” said Westport resident and avid cyclist John Ragland.
A marketing consultant with Affinity Partners, he founded the Challenge with cancer amputee Jeff Keith in 2005.
“I wanted to make (the event) special--a cycling fund-raising event where the money is raised in Connecticut and stays in Connecticut, one where we can invite people that cancer had touched in one way or another. We wanted this for Connecticut, for residents, and this is my way of supporting the community.”
Ragland and Keith’s efforts have already paid rich dividends. Fulfilling the initial goal of the Connecticut Challenge, they have raised more than $800,000 to establish a survivorship clinic at the Yale Cancer Center, the only comprehensive treatment center in Connecticut, according the National Cancer Institute.
Rick Edelson, the director of the Yale center, is another Westport resident who signed on to work with Ragland, Keith and the Challenge.
But after the opening of the Connecticut Challenge Survivor Clinic in October 2006, Ragland and his fellow volunteers are committed to funding the Hero’s Clinic, a program within the greater clinic for survivors of pediatric cancers.
“Our mission now is to expand the clinic,” said the Challenge’s executive director Bob Mazzone, who noted that there are 150,000 cancer survivors in Connecticut. “Expand the space, expand the resources and expand awareness. That’s an appealing cause.”
The Challenge has become so popular that rider ship is up this year to 400 from 318 in 2006. Last year, those participants, along with18 cancer survivors, helped raise $500,000 from riders, their friends and co-workers. This year 30 survivors will ride.
Mazzone attributes the Challenge’s increasing popularity to the bonding experience of the ride and the common ground people find in knowing a cancer survivor or being a cancer survivor themselves.
“The quality of the ride and the popularity is dramatic,” he said. “We’re trying to run the best ride in Connecticut--that’s our goal. Everyone knows a cancer survivor. Cancer research is working.
“Cancer survivors have their own issues based on treatment they receive to survive and this challenge shows them that other people care about them. It’s a bonding opportunity. People are pulling together.”
Mazzone’s wife, Kim Kiner, a survivor of breast cancer, is going to ride.
“Three years after breast surgery this is a great challenge for her,” said Mazzone. “She has to ride. All this hard work is funding a clinic that didn’t exist before the challenge and wouldn’t exist if not for this ride and the people riding in it.”
Amy Kaplan is another survivor. A former Bedford Middle School teacher and 1986 Staples graduate who now owns Success Tutoring, she was recently diagnosed with breast cancer again after overcoming bouts with colon, cervical and breast cancer.
She is a “virtual rider.” Instead of actually participating in the Challenge’s 100-mile, 50-mile, or 25-mile treks, she volunteers at the race, usually organizing the rider check-in at the Greenfield Hill Congregational Church in Fairfield.
But as a patient in the Survivorship Clinic, Kaplan grasps the full value of the event.
“To have somewhere to go to meet your physical and mental needs (as a survivor) is paramount,” she said “There was a real need (for a clinic) in Connecticut and the Connecticut Challenge, with Yale fulfilling it.”
“No one should face survivorship alone…It’s a club that none of us wanted to join, but here we are. You’re dealt what you’re dealt in life. You go with it and you make it good. That’s what I teach to my students.”
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