Thank you for visiting my Harvard College Marathon Challenge fundraising page!

I've been extremely lucky to win a spot with the Harvard College Marathon Challenge team, running the 2010 Boston Marathon with 9 other students and faculty from the College. We're training together towards common goals of successfully completing the marathon and raising money for the Phillips Brooks House Association at Harvard College, a non-profit that promotes social awareness and community involvement at Harvard and beyond. One of the PBHA programs called "Pets as Therapy" has students bring well-behaved dogs to visit the Vernon Hall nursing home every Sunday afternoon for two hours [Claudine is now a "therapy dog," if you can believe it!]. Other programs bring students to run after-school sessions in disadvantaged schools in Cambridge and Mission Hill. 

For my last ten years in Boston, and as a child growing up in Massachusetts, I watched the Boston Marathon in complete awe. While in graduate school, I'd sneak down to Beacon Street to watch runners in their last leg and marvel at the enormity of the accomplishment, always thinking, "I could never do that...." But in the last few months, I've started to think that maybe I CAN... and now I have the chance!

I deeply appreciate donations of any size. I also would love contributions in the form of cheerleading and encouragement - despite my Yankee roots, training through a Boston winter will require a lot of positive thinking!

For more information about my charity, please visit the Harvard College Marathon Challenge website.

Many thanks and warm wishes,

Jess