David Frick's PledgePage
Hello All!
Many of you know that five years ago I undertook the greatest challenge of my life, the Notre Dame Boxing Club event Bengal Bouts. The Bengal Bouts has been a seventy-year tradition on the Notre Dame campus in which anything but average students train for six weeks in order to compete in a week-long boxing tournament event. The training involved not only throwing punches inside the ring, but thousands of push-ups, sit-ups, and jumping jacks. Nothing has pushed me to the edge of exhaustion like those days in the gym. Some days when my muscles felt like they couldn’t perform any more, it would be difficult to find the motivation to head to practice. But one thing that kept me going was the mission of the Bouts.
You see, the Bengal Bouts aren’t about students getting in the ring to get a chance to act like Rocky for a few minutes. The Bouts are a fundraiser to sponsor the Missions in Bangladesh. The Missions perform extraordinary feats with limited means. They feed, house, and educate the people of Bangladesh for people who have the average per capita income of under $300.
The money is raised by the participants selling ads in the program and soliciting donations. Via this method, the Bouts is able to raise as much $40,000 each year. While this sum is amazing in U.S. terms, when translated to Bangladesh currency it is worth many times more.
I managed to make it to the Bengal Bouts final in 1998. Though I was exhausted and nearly defeated by the final round, the mission of the Bouts gave me a strength that allowed me to keep my feet when my body would have failed me otherwise. Though I lost the fight, I’ve never felt more like a winner in my life.
To understand the full magnitude that this event had on my life, please find the story I wrote that year at the following link. http://bengalbouts.nd.edu/articles.html
In continuation with the spirit of the Bengal Bouts, I’ve decided to start off the year with another tremendous challenge – I’m going to run the Suzuki Rock ‘n Roll Marathon (my first) on June 1st! (That’s a 40K/26.2 mile run - yikes!) I’ve been told that I’m “crazy.” Well, maybe so, BUT I feel confident that I can tackle this through the support of Team In Training®.
Team In Training® is the largest endurance sports training program in the world and is made up of 30,000 runners, walkers, cyclists and triathletes who participate on behalf of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society®. Leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma are cancers that originate in the bone marrow or in lymphatic tissues and interfere with the body's production of healthy blood cells, making the body unable to protect itself against infections.
Funds donated through Team In Training® and The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society® in the last decade have led to the introduction of several very important new drugs and have uncovered new uses for existing drugs that have greatly improved cure rates or remission duration for many patients with leukemia. Although progress has been made, there is still much work to be done:
Every five minutes, someone in the United States learns that he or she has leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease or myeloma (that’s 106,700 people this year!)
Every nine minutes, another child or adult is expected to die from leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma. (160 people each day - seven people every hour)
An estimated 640,000 Americans are presently living with leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma
My goal: Raise $2,400 for the society and to finish the marathon in less than 4 hours!
My hope is to help the society in its continued efforts to improve the survival rate and quality of life for leukemia and lymphoma patients. And I know that when I hit “the wall” around mile 22, the knowledge of how my efforts are affecting lives and your support will allow me to cross that finish line.
Though there is no time limit to when you can contribute to the Society’s fight against cancer, I would appreciate donations no later than April 1st in order to accomplish my donation goal.
Thank you.
David
Many of you know that five years ago I undertook the greatest challenge of my life, the Notre Dame Boxing Club event Bengal Bouts. The Bengal Bouts has been a seventy-year tradition on the Notre Dame campus in which anything but average students train for six weeks in order to compete in a week-long boxing tournament event. The training involved not only throwing punches inside the ring, but thousands of push-ups, sit-ups, and jumping jacks. Nothing has pushed me to the edge of exhaustion like those days in the gym. Some days when my muscles felt like they couldn’t perform any more, it would be difficult to find the motivation to head to practice. But one thing that kept me going was the mission of the Bouts.
You see, the Bengal Bouts aren’t about students getting in the ring to get a chance to act like Rocky for a few minutes. The Bouts are a fundraiser to sponsor the Missions in Bangladesh. The Missions perform extraordinary feats with limited means. They feed, house, and educate the people of Bangladesh for people who have the average per capita income of under $300.
The money is raised by the participants selling ads in the program and soliciting donations. Via this method, the Bouts is able to raise as much $40,000 each year. While this sum is amazing in U.S. terms, when translated to Bangladesh currency it is worth many times more.
I managed to make it to the Bengal Bouts final in 1998. Though I was exhausted and nearly defeated by the final round, the mission of the Bouts gave me a strength that allowed me to keep my feet when my body would have failed me otherwise. Though I lost the fight, I’ve never felt more like a winner in my life.
To understand the full magnitude that this event had on my life, please find the story I wrote that year at the following link. http://bengalbouts.nd.edu/articles.html
In continuation with the spirit of the Bengal Bouts, I’ve decided to start off the year with another tremendous challenge – I’m going to run the Suzuki Rock ‘n Roll Marathon (my first) on June 1st! (That’s a 40K/26.2 mile run - yikes!) I’ve been told that I’m “crazy.” Well, maybe so, BUT I feel confident that I can tackle this through the support of Team In Training®.
Team In Training® is the largest endurance sports training program in the world and is made up of 30,000 runners, walkers, cyclists and triathletes who participate on behalf of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society®. Leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma are cancers that originate in the bone marrow or in lymphatic tissues and interfere with the body's production of healthy blood cells, making the body unable to protect itself against infections.
Funds donated through Team In Training® and The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society® in the last decade have led to the introduction of several very important new drugs and have uncovered new uses for existing drugs that have greatly improved cure rates or remission duration for many patients with leukemia. Although progress has been made, there is still much work to be done:
Every five minutes, someone in the United States learns that he or she has leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease or myeloma (that’s 106,700 people this year!)
Every nine minutes, another child or adult is expected to die from leukemia, lymphoma or myeloma. (160 people each day - seven people every hour)
An estimated 640,000 Americans are presently living with leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma
My goal: Raise $2,400 for the society and to finish the marathon in less than 4 hours!
My hope is to help the society in its continued efforts to improve the survival rate and quality of life for leukemia and lymphoma patients. And I know that when I hit “the wall” around mile 22, the knowledge of how my efforts are affecting lives and your support will allow me to cross that finish line.
Though there is no time limit to when you can contribute to the Society’s fight against cancer, I would appreciate donations no later than April 1st in order to accomplish my donation goal.
Thank you.
David