Kristen's Fundraising Letter

As we have mentioned in the past, one of the most effective ways to raise money for the Susan G. Komen 3 Day for the Cure is a letter writing campaign to friends and family.  Today, we are featuring Kristen's fundraising letter!

Please support me in the 2010 Susan G. Komen 3 Day for the Cure!

Dear friends and family,

It has been projected that breast cancer will take the lives of more than 40,000 men and women in the United States in the next year.  A little over a year ago, this incomprehensible statistic became very real for me when my long time best friend Jen lost her mother Marcia to breast cancer after a several year fight for her life. Together with Jen, her father and a team of our friends and family, I will be taking to the sidewalks in the 2010 Breast Cancer 3 Day in Boston from July 23 – 25 to honor Marcia’s memory and to help ensure that in the future, no one will ever again have to face losing their mother too soon because of breast cancer.

The Breast Cancer 3 Day is a 60 mile walk over the course of three days that raises funds for Susan G. Komen for the Cure and breast cancer research.  A Susan G. Komen for the Cure grant has impacted virtually every major advance in the fight against breast cancer in the last 27 years.  The money that we raise through the Breast Cancer 3 Day will truly help to save the lives of untold numbers of women.  In order to participate in this event, I must raise at least $2300.  Together with my teammates, we have set our team goal much higher: we are hoping to raise $20,000 before the walk at the end of July.  This is a huge goal and we cannot reach it by ourselves.  Please consider making a fully tax-deductible donation to help us reach our fundraising goal today. 

If you would like to contribute, you can do so online by visiting my personal fundraising page at www.the3day.org/goto/kscincotta.  Donations made online can be made as one time payments or in installments for up to four months.  If you would prefer to donate by check, please email me at kscincotta@gmail.com and I will let you know how to do that.  As you consider your donation, please keep in mind that many companies have matching gift programs, an easy way for you to double the size of your contribution! 

The Breast Cancer 3 Day is a very important event for me.  This will be my third 3 Day event and each year, I discover something new that makes the experience that much more special.  This year, I have the added challenge of captaining a team of 5 other walkers and 3 crew members, the majority of whom are new to the Breast Cancer 3 Day.  We have named our team “Relentless Optimism” in honor of the tremendous spirit in which Marcia faced her battle with breast cancer.  She was a bright light to all who knew her and she is greatly missed.  We cannot think of a better way to honor her life than by taking on this challenge together.  To learn more about our team and our various fundraising activities, I encourage everyone to visit our team fundraising blog at http://relentlessoptimismfundraising.blogspot.com/.

In addition to my walking and fundraising commitments, I am thrilled to also be acting as an Online Ambassador for the Breast Cancer 3 Day community.  In this role, I have again been blogging about my 3 Day experiences on my personal 3 Day blog Kristen Walks which can be found at kscincotta.blogspot.com.  I highly encourage anyone and everyone who is curious about what goes into preparing for the 3 Day to bookmark my blog and check back often.  This blog is also a tremendous tool for me to use to stay in touch with all of my donors and supporters in the months and weeks leading up to the Boston 3 Day at the end of July.

Before I go, I wanted to share one more statistic with you: someone in the world loses their life to breast cancer every 68 seconds. 68 seconds. Just over a minute. That one life could be someone’s grandmother. Someone’s friend. Someone’s sister. That one life could be my mom, who is currently battling cancer for the second time, after her breast cancer was in remission for a year and a half.  That one life WAS Marcia, just over a year ago.  There is a very real reason why we are doing this: to save lives.

Please take some time today or in the next few days to really think about what we're trying to do here.  We get ourselves all dolled up in pink and hit the streets pledging to walk 5 miles, 10 miles, 60 miles...  We laugh, we make boobie jokes, we try not to complain too much about blisters.  But in the end, what we're really trying to do is find a cure for breast cancer once and for all.  This won't be easy.  Breast cancer can occur in many different forms.  No two cases are exactly alike.  Recurrences of breast cancer often occur in other parts of the body, making it even more difficult to treat.  But we can do this if we work together.  Even if our efforts only result in one life being lost every 136 seconds, we will be saving half of the lives that would otherwise be lost.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this letter.  I hope that you will join me in taking part in this incredible adventure.  Please share this information with anyone that you think might be interested.  If I have learned one thing during my time with the 3-Day, it is that everyone, everywhere has been touched by breast cancer in some way.  This is something that has affected all of us and together, we are working towards achieving the ultimate goal of the Breast Cancer 3-Day: a world without breast cancer.

All my best,

Kristen Sager Cincotta

With Tommy and Marcia at the 2007 CNY Race for the Cure (L) 
and with my mom at the 2008 Atlanta 3 Day (R)
To read more about the individual reasons why our team members are walking this year, please visit this post where we have archived all of our fundraising letters.