It’s Giving Tuesday.
If your plan is to make a donation to Walking with Jane today, please don’t.
We’ve shuttered Walking with Jane for the duration of the pandemic.
The needs of the many
When children are hungry, when parents are trying to keep a warm roof over their children’s heads, when there are spouses and children facing unprecedented levels of abuse during times like these, their needs must come first.
Most of you have limited resources to donate to charitable causes. Send your money, and devote your time, to your local food pantry, your local soup kitchen, your local homeless shelter, your local spousal and child abuse prevention centers and shelters.
It’s not that cancer research doesn’t matter.
It does.
But, for me at least, food, clothing and shelter come first–especially for our most vulnerable.
If you have the means…
That said, if you have the means to do more and want that more to be on the NET cancer front, let me suggest three organizations worthy of your support.
First is the NETwalkers Alliance Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk team. All the money we raise through that event goes to NET cancer research at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. The program there is headed by Dr. Jennifer Chan, who was Jane’s doctor and has become a good friend over the last ten years.
Second, make a donation in Jane’s memory to the NET Research Foundation. They fund lots of cutting edge research into NET cancer around the world. They are what Walking with Jane aspires to be in terms of funding research.
Or, finally, make a donation in memory of Jane to the Carcinoid Cancer Foundation. They’ve kept the NET cancer fight going for more than 50 years and should be the first stop on any newly diagnosed NET cancer patient’s list of sites to visit. Their education materials are first rate and they maintain a list of the most qualified NET cancer doctors in the US. They are who Walking with Jane aspires to be on the education and awareness front.
But, again, before you do any of that, take care of the hungry, the homeless, and the abused in your neighborhood this year.
