To benefit the my place of employment's Relay for Life team for the American Cancer Society, back in March when I did the McClane Pacific Foothills Century, I sent a flyer attachment with an email to my coworkers, friends, and family members. Since at that time I wasn't sure if I could do the Relay's walk/run event with our team (because of my husband's work schedule), I tried to think of another way that I could contribute to our team and to the A.C.S. without actually participating in the walk. The team had put on a few fundraising events, booksales and such, so I had the idea to do a "pledge" thing sortof like the Walk-a-Thon, only the pledges would be just a few cents per mile that I rode. I did tell everyone that I could and intended to do the full metric century (ended up being 67 miles) so that they could calculate approximately how much they would donate in the end.

Astonishingly, even though I didn't get as many pledges as I had hoped, the amounts were high. I got $600 worth in pledges, and after all collections were made after the ride, I ended up raising $701. One person upped her donation from $67 to $150.00, as she had recently lost a friend to cancer. As sortof a way to say thanks to everyone's generosity and to help carry me over the hills, I printed a list of all the names of the pledges and carried it with me during the ride. That way, symbolically, everyone was there riding with me in my "stadium" of foothills as I rode, not walked.

Not only did I have a blast doing the century, but I got a really good feeling from it, knowing I was helping to raise funds to find a cure for cancer. How cool is that?! A few months later, it still makes me smile.