CANCER SUCKS SO FIGHT BACK!

Some of you may already know that I am a cancer survivor and participate in a Relay For Life each year in June. My team is gearing up to walk a track all night again this year and need your support to raise critical funds to keep the programs and services of the American Cancer Society available for the over 1.4 million new cancer survivors each year.

I am also participating in Frosting For A Cause (@Frosting4Cause) to help further raise awareness about the fight against cancer. June 5th is National Cancer Survivor Day and I will be posting my Frosting For A Cause entry that day in honor.

 I’m not sure what I am going to make yet so you will have to check back then to find out what pink frosted treats I make to celebrate cancer survivors everywhere and remember those brave souls we have lost to this terrible disease.

I do know how I am going to fulfill my obligations in participating in the event though, and that’s where you can help. One of the requirements is to donate my creation to a local organization that cares for cancer survivors and patients. I am going to put a twist on this and donate them to be served at the survivor celebration lunch at the Relay For Life my parents are participating in on June 4th.

My second commitment is donate money to the American Cancer Society, which is something I already do and am doing again this year. I can multiply that donation and its impact with your help.

My team is named Survivors Rule! and we are a potent example of what family and friends can do when we band together to fight.

Since 2003 we have

• Raised over $72,000 for The American Cancer Society and the Lance Armstrong Foundation!
• Walked hundreds and hundreds of miles proudly showing we are strong and can beat cancer
• Volunteered to help organize, setup, cleanup and host event activities for 750+ people nearly every year
• Placed as the top fund-raising team at our event 4 of the last 5 years, raising over $10,000 each of those years
• Involved dozens of cancer survivors in a celebration of their brave fight
• Educated hundreds of people of how and how much cancer affects all of us
• Had team members been recognized as individual fund-raising leaders, distance challengers and spirit makers
• Represented our cause to local politicians and business leaders who can see how their support helps from our first hand accounts of living with cancer and giving back
• Also participated in the annual Making Strides Against Cancer one-day events in 3 different locations
• Fought cancer like we meant it!

But we still need your help. Any sized donation is welcome and will do so much to contribute to the fight. Your support comes with a simple guarantee, my team and I will make it count as we come out again this year to give cancer an example of how hard we are going to FIGHT BACK!

Please use the link below to donate on-line.

http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFLFY11NE?px=1344507&pg=personal&fr_id=31248

I am going to enjoy my pink frosting challenge and can’t wait to share my creation with you all here and in person with a group of cancer survivors, the honored guests at the Relay For Life. Be sure and come back on or after June 5th to see more of the story.

Thank You

Jason

Thank You for Supporting the Relay For Life

( Margot, 2nd from right, and some of the ladies who supported us. Patty trying to coax Jeanette's daughter into the picture. )

In early Feburary with Foodies Giving Back I shared the story of my cancer fighting team of volunteers and fundraisers. We don’t rest on our laurels. No matter how successful we might have been we are always back in a new year with a new mission and goals at least as big.

We are underway with our fundraising and one this that is different this year from last, is that I will be using my blog an Twitter to solicit support from beyond my local area. The fight against cancer is important to everyone because cancer has or will affect everyone’s life directly or indirectly. That is a sad reality to grasp, but we are here, we are fighting, and we will win! We must have HOPE!

If you would like to support the fight against cancer with a 100% direct and tax-deductible donation please use the link below.

http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFLFY12NE?px=1344507&pg=personal&fr_id=39884 (2012 link, updated just in case people wander through. Please donate!)

We (Margot and I) held a wine tasting at our home last weekend to raise funds and thank many of our long time donors for their continued support. It is a causal affair, wine, snacks, some drawings for prizes and good conversation. We raised $800 through invitations and attendance at the event. If you attended and/or donated we thank you so much. If you haven’t donated yet, we hope you will consider it. As I told the assembled guests, we know where the money goes. We have met people who have benefited from the programs and services of the American Cancer Society right here where we live. We can see how the money we (you, us and everyone involved) raise reduces suffering and saves lives.

This year we were lucky enough to stumble on prizes that we wouldn’t have easily secured on our own. The folks from Our Cook Quest arranged to the have prizes from their recipe contest that didn’t draw enough participation to complete. We added a bottle of our Strawberry wine into the mix and we were off!

I find myself at a low point with the availability of homemade red wine so it was also a stroke of luck that Dave & Robyn, new winemaking friends of ours, are primarily red drinkers and had 3 styles to share with us. I was so excited to showcase someone else’s wine at our event as well. And from the feedback and my own tastings the Shiraz and Dolcetto were excellent examples of their styles and very pleasing to drink. Thanks Dave & Robin!

We opened bottles of our Strawberry, Unoaked Chardonnay, Viognier, Dandelion, Jalapeno, Riesling Ice Wine and Pinot Grigio. We also had a bottle of our Amarone (red) to put out.

For snacks we went with primarily heat-and-serve, but I did make the Cheese Straws again. Grafton Village Cheese picked up the tweets and the recipe is making the rounds through their fans as we speak. We also put out veggies and cheese & crackers. Our friend Amy tackled the sweet angle with thumbprint Russian Teacakes with raspberry jam in the middle. They were so good!!

Drawing Winners

Fine Cooking Grill It! & Pasta Fresca – Missy G

Ancient Fire Strawberry Wine – Amy & Brian W

Fine Cooking Breakfast & Cuccina Rustica - @eatingwmeaning

Amanda Hesser NY Times Cookbook - Amy & Brian W

In The Kitchen With A Good Appetite – Cyndi M

Fine Cooking Soups and Sandwiches, Cuccina Fresca & 15 Minute Meals – Robyn D

Much thanks to Our Cook Quest and the supporting sponsors for the prizes. They definitely attracted some attention and were a nice spin for this year’s event.

Will the Survivors Rule! team eclipse $10,000 again this year? I don't know. I never do, and then something happens and we seemed to get there. I do know that to reach that goal takes support from lots of people, including you. Thank you for supporting us.

Sadly 1 in 2 people will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime. I would like to say that the work we all do today will radically change that, but I can’t stop long enough to figure that out. This battle rages on and we need your help.

Cheers!

Jason

Foodies Giving Back

( Our first Relay For Life team, June 2004. )

In February 2003 I was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Through swift action on my part (calling the doctor) and a great team of doctors and nurses I underwent surgery, radiation therapy and got well in about 5 months. This event started two things that continue to do this day that I am immensely proud of. The first was a renewed commitment to fundraising and volunteer work, and the second was making my own beer and wine.

If you have poked around my blog for a bit you've gotten a sense of my adventures with home brewing and home winemaking. Margot asked me if picking up a hobby would be better than working all the time now that I was well and desirous of appreciating my second chance at life. I agreed, and the rest is history.

I have roots in community service, volunteering and fundraising. I am an Eagle Scout and was an active volunteer and fundraiser with the Boy Scouts, my hometown church and local organizations for many years before I went to college. In college I joined a fraternity that had a commitment to community service, something that resonated with me based on my background. After college my volunteering waned in favor of my career, but I donated to charities as much as I could during that time. After having cancer I found that my roots in giving back were re-invigorated. I wanted, no, I needed to give back. I needed to be an example for others of the hope we all must have to fight cancer.

In June of 2003, only two months out of treatment, my wife and I participated in a walk for prostate cancer on Father’s Day. Later that year we linked up with the Lance Armstrong Peleton Project and made 100 apple pies by hand (see me hard at work to the left) to raise money to fight cancer. Margot and I also attended our first Making Strides Against Breast Cancer walk, and event sponsored by the American Cancer Society. That event was in Boston and five minutes after I got home from it I went looking for a similar event in New Hampshire. I found the local Strides event in Manchester,NH would be held the very next weekend and promptly volunteered to help setup and cleanup. At that event I was introduced to the event chairperson for the Manchester Relay For Life, an event I had heard of through my mother’s research during my treatment. Without thinking about it, and getting in trouble for it when I got home, I volunteered to be the survivorship committee chairperson for the Relay that would be held in June of 2004. For that event my wife and I also formed a team of fundraisers and walkers, Survivors Rule! The team is composed of family and friends who all look forward to our annual events.

Food related events have been key to our fundraising. We have hosted a chocolate party, made chocolate baskets, held wine tastings and made pies several additional times, all to fight cancer. Wine tastings have become a flagship event for us, something that as a winemaker I can wholly embrace.

While our involvement with the Lance Armstrong Foundation didn’t continue as their events program has evolved, we have developed a strong relationship with the local American Cancer Society office participating in both Relay and Strides in every year since 2004. I have had the honor of being a speaker at many events, have participated in advocacy work with local politicians and made so many friends through involvement in these activites. I often look back and wonder how in the world this all happened.

( My brother, on the right, and his friend Geoff at one of our wine tastings. )

( Strides - we walk rain, snow or shine! )

( Tired & sore having completed another Relay For Life! )

( Me and Margot's uncle Gerry, also a cancer survivor. )

One of the most astonishing things that has come from all of this is how much money we have raised. Since 2003 the Survivors Rule! team has raised over $72,000!!! I always tell people who ask about this that if you had told me 8 years ago that I would be saying that now I would have likely fallen out of a chair laughing at your insane blabber. Our team has been the top fundraising team at our local Relay in 4 of the last 5 years and is the most successful (in $$ raised) in the event’s history. I get choked up just thinking about how much our support has helped and how many people we have reduce suffering for.

In late 2010 Sarah from the OC 2 Seattle blog put out a call for food bloggers who use their blog to support local charities. I responded with made the caveat that I hadn’t really used my blog to promote my events, but had used my culinary and winemaking skills to raise money and give back. It did occur to me that since changing my blog format in April of 2010 that I may have missed an opportunity. You can see what Sarah ultimately wrote about my team’s exploits in her blog.
Sarah shared her surprise as to how a relatively small group of people had accomplished so much and in such a short time. She could tell I was quite proud of the accomplishments and had an eye to a new year for fundraising and giving back in 2011. She suggested that I consider harnessing Social Media (Twitter in particular) to add virtual attendance to wine tasting events and broaden my call for support. I have to thank her for pointing this out to me, for some reason I hadn’t yet made the link.

In March and April, the dates are not yet set, we will be doing just that, hosting wine tastings and connecting with folks around the world to help us in our fight. As we get closer I will be sharing lots of additional information about the American Cancer Society, it’s events, mission and how you can get involved.

( Last year's Relay team right before closing. Proud aren't we!! )

Our team is back for Relay again this year and our online fundraising site is up and running. If you would like to donate to get us going for another fantastic year you can use the link below. The donations go directly to the American Cancer Society as we raise funds in advance of our event in June. Thank you so much for you support.

DONATION LINK - http://main.acsevents.org/site/TR/RelayForLife/RFLFY11NE?px=1344507&pg=personal&fr_id=31248

A few years into our activities I coined a battle cry for my team. I use it all the time to remind people just what it is that we are doing. I’ll close with that today.

“We are here, we are fighting, and we will win! WE MUST HAVE HOPE.”

Jason