Health

Pan-Mass Challenge raises $47 million for Dana Farber Cancer Institute

Pictured from left to right: Sam Kennedy, president of the Boston Red Sox, Lisa Hughes, WBZ-TV anchor, Josh Bekenstein, co-chairman of Bain Capital and chairman of the Dana-Farber Board of Trustees, Billy Starr, founder and executive director of the Pan-Mass Challenge, Laurie Glimcher, president and chief executive officer of Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and David Fialkow, managing director for General Catalyst and chairman of the Pan-Mass Challenge Board of Trustees. 13 Photography

By Meagan McGinnes

October 20, 2016

1 minute to read

The 2016 Pan-Mass Challenge raised $47 million for the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, the nonprofit announced Thursday.

The funds, which will help support adult and pediatric care and cancer research, brought the bike-a-thon fundraising total to more than $547 million for the institute since the PMC’s inception in 1980. The money donated was raised during the nonprofit’s 2016 ride on August 6 and 7, thanks to more than 6,300 cyclists.

“To think that just 37 years ago, it was a small group of us on our bikes raising $10,200 for cancer research – and now, more than 6,200 riders achieving this milestone of $47 million – it’s extraordinary,” Billy Starr, founder and executive director of PMC, told Boston.com in an email. “Not to mention that we beat our initial $46 million goal for the year. This is all proof that sweat equity can truly make a difference.”

Historically, PMC is Dana-Farber’s single largest contributor, raising more than 52 percent of the Jimmy Fund’s annual revenue, according to a statement. Starr said this year PMC set a fundraising goal of $46 million for participating riders, which was $1 million more than its 2015 gift to the cancer institute.

“That goal plants a seed in riders’ minds and they are determined to not just achieve it, but to exceed it,” Starr told Boston.com. “And that is exactly what they did this year.”

The donation announcement comes one day after Biden spoke in Boston about the nation’s cancer moonshot initiative and the role of the New England cancer research community in helping to accomplish that mission.