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The Joann Gaddy Grimes Big Event to Fight Cancer will celebrate its final year by "bookending" the very first event when Joann rode from Greensboro to the Duke Cancer Center in 1995. This year, Joann, David and Dr. Kim Lyerly, the Executive Director of the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center, will again ride from Greensboro to Duke on May 31. Your support is needed this year, as in years past, and we want you to be a "fighter - a cancer fighter" and ask your friends to sponsor you as that fighter.
Read below for further details - we still need your support!!!
Yes, it is the 15th anniversary of the first Joann Gaddy Grimes Big Event – and with this significant year, there are changes in the planning. We are revisiting the very first ride that Joann made 15 years ago – alone from Greensboro to Duke. This time, though, David will join her along with Dr. Kim Lyerly, the Executive Director of the Duke Comprehensive Cancer Center. So, it is a Bookend Event to that first one in 1995.
Joann, David and Dr. Lyerly will leave on Sunday morning, May 31 from the Greensboro Gateway Education Center on Wendover Avenue at approximately 7:00 am. They will arrive at the Morris Cancer Clinic at Duke South at approximately 1:00 p.m. where there will be a brief ceremony celebrating the 15 years of support lead by Joann and David Grimes. In addition, there will be the passing of the “torch” symbolizing the passing of “The Joann Gaddy Grimes Big Event to Fight Cancer” to the “Duke Big Event to Fight Cancer.”
Regardless of the look of the event, cancer continues to move fast – and we must move even faster. So, your help is needed.
As in years past, with numbers of supportive and energetic riders, we need your help just as much as ever. This year the funds raised will support specific research in cancer for breast, liver, colon, chordoma and the Pathfinders program which helps patients with mind, body and spirit issues as they deal with cancer.
You may not be riding that 50 mile stretch but we hope you will consider participating in the event by making a donation and by encouraging your friends to join you. You may elect to send them a letter explaining why you are passionate about cancer research, asking them to sponsor you as a “fighter – a cancer fighter,” and enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope addressed to you. Remind them that cancer is NOT waiting.
Another option is to invite them to our website (www.dukebigevent.org) and check out the donation page that you have set up – where they can easily make a credit card gift, helping you reach your goal – whatever you decide that goal might be.
Our hope is that this last year of the “Joann Gaddy Grimes Big Event” will be the biggest and best ever – and that we will raise record breaking funds to eradicate this debilitating disease. Our eye is on a cumulative goal of $4,500,000 for cancer research at Duke.
Any amount you feel you can give will be accepted with great joy!
If you give or raise $250 or more, you will receive a commemorative t-shirt from this 15th and final “Joann Gaddy Grimes Big Event to Fight Cancer”.
If you give or raise $500 or more, you will receive a commemorative t-shirt and you and a guest will be invited to celebrate with us on Saturday, June 6 at the Kress Terrace in downtown Greensboro. We will celebrate your support and hard work over these last 15 years with this sponsor event. Cocktails, wine, hors d’oeuvres and a seated dinner will be followed by presentations by scientists from Duke who will describe the advances being made in personalized medicine.
