Today, the city of Philadelphia announced that all large gatherings including parades and races are canceled until February 2021 (at the earliest). This means that a ton of races have been canceled or switched to virtual.
Although I'm fundraising for the NYC Marathon, I am also on the Philadelphia mailing list for Team DetermiNation. They sent an update about Broad Street Run, Philadelphia Marathon, and general fundraising information.
The Road Ahead…This is why I am continuing my fundraising efforts now even though I have an extra year to reach my goal. Cancer hasn't gone away.
There are no two ways about it, 2020 has been a rough year on all of us. As athletes, we are used to setting goals for ourselves and accomplishing them. It’s part of the reason why our program has so many highly educated athletes, because we’re used to challenging ourselves and realizing our potential.
The road ahead for the American Cancer Society is full of challenges. The vast majority of our fundraising events were scheduled to be in person in 2020. This has made it very difficult to fund our mission. Our cancer research funding is at risk, and this past quarter our senior leadership has made the painstakingly difficult decision to reduce our capacity from $700 million to $500 million (nationally). This could lead to a generation of cancer research lost.
Be that as it may, please understand that we will always keep our commitment to mission and cancer issues front of mind. We are also committed towards ensuring what is fair to our DetermiNation athletes and volunteers.
