Mensa Member Running for a Cause

Posted in Tidbits on August 2, 2003

Greater New York Mensa member Jared Levine is raising money for the American Cancer Society (ACS) by running a Marathon Against Cancer. Last year, he ran his own personal marathon and raised $4,000 for the ACS. This year, he is running in the New York City marathon and hopes to raise $10,000. Click ‘Read More’ below to read his press release, which includes information on how you can donate.

MARATHON AGAINST CANCER

by Jared Levine, Greater New York Mensa



As a relatively small number of people within Mensa know, last year I ran my own personal marathon three weeks after the official New York City marathon, in order to raise money to go towards cancer research, specifically breast and prostate cancer, as both have hit my family over the years. Although it was thrown together in a relatively short amount of time and the word of mouth I was looking to generate didn’t spread nearly as far and wide as I had hoped, I was still able to raise a solid $4,000 for the American Cancer Society.


Well, I’m still running strong and several months ago (by the time this is read, at least) I found out that I was officially accepted into the New York City Marathon being run November 2! This go-round there’s plenty of time to get the word out far and wide. I have several goals this time:

1. Get the word out to as much of the Mensa membership as possible. With about 45,000 people in the U.S., each knowing how many non-Mensans, word of mouth from this article alone could be huge.
2. Raise at least $10,000 for the American Cancer Society. The pertinent information will be at the end of the article.
3. Make this into an ever-burgeoning and continuing tradition, whether I manage to be in the marathon or not. While the American Cancer Society does plenty of things throughout the year and gets occasional, intermittent local coverage of a few specific events, it is quite rare that they manage a national audience. If my efforts are successful, the marathon could turn into one of those national opportunities, as it is always covered on a national basis.

So, join me! There are lots of ways you can show your support:

1. If you are in the New York City area on Sunday, November 2, come out along the marathon course and cheer me on, as well as my 30,000 fellow competitors.
2. If you are expecting to be in the marathon, let me know. We can try to meet up amid the chaos of Staten Island and run together (if our paces are at all similar) or hope to cross somewhere within the 26.2 miles. It’d be great to have a Mensa contingent, especially a multi-regional group of people.
3. DONATE! While the cheers and the moral support are what help get any marathoner across the finish line, it is the money that will help researchers find cures. Please consider donating as generously as your budget will allow. Heck, see if your local chapter would be willing to put up some matching funds to further encourage donations from your membership. Every last dollar helps! If everybody reading this article wrote a check for $1 and mailed it in, we would have a fast $45,000 raised, well in excess of my modest goal of $10,000. Let’s show ‘em what we can do!

To donate, you can do one of two things: mail a check made payable to American Cancer Society to me in advance of the race to: Jared Levine, 83-40 Austin Street #6W, Kew Gardens, NY 11415 (and I will then give the bundle to ACS) or you can mail it directly to my local chapter at American Cancer Society, 97-77 Queens Blvd., Suite 1110, Rego Park 11374. Please make sure that your checks are made out directly to American Cancer Society AND that you write MARATHON AGAINST CANCER on the memo line, so they know that this is in conjunction with these efforts, as opposed to one of their other programs. It is important that you have the check make its way to my local chapter, as they are not yet at the stage on a national level where their computer network would be able to realize moneys donated for this specific cause in another area of the country, even with the proper notation.


For further information on me or my efforts, please contact me via e-mail or via snail mail at the above address. You can call anytime after normal working hours to 718-846-3701, too. (No daytime calls, please.)