Dear Friends,

This may come as a shock to most of you, but I am training to participate in the Mayor's Midnight Sun Marathon in Anchorage, Alaska, June 23rd, as a member of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team In Training. Yes, 26.2 miles that I am crazy enough to run!

All of us on Team In Training are raising funds to help stop leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma from taking more lives.

I'm completing this event in honor of all my friends and family members who are fighting or have fought cancer. I thank those who were there for our family when we lost my mother, Louis Dearen, to breast cancer in 1996, my father Bob Dearen, to leukemia in 2000, and as my husband Mike battled and beat prostate cancer in 2004. I am also running to pay tribute to the fight my aunt, Coors's mother, and cousin, and many artists I paint with have put up against various cancers, and to celebrate the life of beautiful and sweet Ali Mills, whom we lost after a hard fight with neuroblastoma in 2005. These people are the real heroes of our team, and the LLS needs your support to cross the ultimate finish line - a cure!

Please make a donation (no matter how big or small) to help advance the Society's mission. Anything you give is tax deductible. Please mail checks made payable to The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society to me at 3286 Pointe South Cove, Memphis, TN 38125, or you may donate via www.active.com/donate/tnttn/DRichmond. If you are able to help. For those of you who have or will receive this letter by mail, I apologize for the not-so-subtle nudge for your support.

I hope you'll visit my website often. Be sure to check back frequently to see my progress. I appreciate SOOOO much your help in funding the research for a cure!

Love,
Debbie

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