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Community Corner

A Positive Spin on End-Of-Year Giving

Cycle for Survival gears up to raise money to fight rare cancers.

Looking to put a positive spin on end-of-year giving? Dozens of NJ teachers and other volunteers are gearing up to battle rare cancers with Cycle for Survival and are looking for donations.

Jennifer Goodman Linn, who died this past July, left a legacy with , a national, indoor relay-style team cycling event. It has raised more than $10.6 million for research of rare cancers at Memorial Sloan-Kettering.

“It is now up to all of us who were somehow touched by Jennifer to continue her mission,” said her parents Len and Sandy Goodman, writing on the blog called You Fearless where their daughter shared the intimate details of her seven-year journey with sarcome.

Jen and her husband David founded Cycle for Survival, a spinning event that grew from Jen's own exercise regiment. Plans are in motion for 2012. More than 2,000 teams are expected to ride over the course of two weekends in February in New York City, Long Island, Chicago, San Francisco, and — for the first time — Washington D.C. and Los Angeles. A New Jersey satellite spin will be Feb. 11 in Livingston, where more than $80,000 has already been pledged. Learn more about the NJ satellite spin here.

was a graduate of Livingston High School, Duke University, and Harvard Business School. She held high-power marketing jobs and wrote about her illness for a variety of magazines and online news sites, and appeared on major network news programs.

The NJ satellite event has the support of the schools, merchants, the Livingston police and fire departments, politicians, and numerous organizations and clubs cycling on more than 100 spin bikes and supporting cancer lab research for Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

“This day of memory will be a great celebration of our daughter’s life,” her parents said.

Sydney Becker, a 13-year-old Livingston sarcoma survivor who was touched by Jen, will pin. And Jen's parents will also spin "so that the roots to this insidious disease are untangled and eradicated."
 
Learn more about Cycle for Survival here and how to donate here.

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