Hello. Radford Bean here with a very important message. Sadly, the Trump administration earlier this year chose to eliminate funding for kids' cancer research. This critical loss of federal funding for kids' cancer research means that private donations are more important than ever.

According to the American Childhood Cancer Organization, there are an estimated 15,780 children between the ages of birth and 19 years of age who are diagnosed with cancer each year in the U.S. Approximately 1 in 285 children in the U.S. will be diagnosed with cancer before their 20th birthday. Every three minutes, somewhere in the world a family hears the devastating words that their child has been diagnosed with cancer. Those are frightening statistics. As a grandfather, nothing would scare me more than hearing my granddaughter has cancer.

Now I'm going to be honest with you. I hadn't planned on riding this year because I got tired of begging for money in support of kids' cancer research. In addition, I had knee surgery in early March that made me question if I was up for riding a long distance during September. But canceling federal funding for kids' cancer research seemed cruel to me, especially given how wealthy America is, so I felt the need to ride again this year.

I am asking for your financial support again this year. Will you stand with me by donating to support GCC's efforts to raise money to fund kids' cancer research? Your contribution is more important than ever.

Thank you for your support. It means a lot to kids and their families dealing with cancer.

Radford Bean