$10 for 10 Days for LIVESTRONG

In honor of LIVESTRONG Day coming up on October 2, and in preparation for the 100 miles I’ll ride in the LIVESTRONG Challenge on October 21 in Austin, Texas, I want to show you how your small change can make a big difference in the fight against cancer.  For the each of the next 10 days, until September 30, I’ll ride my bike 10 miles for every $10 donated at my fundraising link http://laf.livestrong.org/goto/pearson

Here’s the catch:  no donations over $10, please.  Why?  Most people think you have to donate a big amount to make a big difference.  What’s $10 over an average day?

• 2 average coffees at Starbucks
• 2 combo meals at your local fast-food joint
• 2 magazines
• 2 footlong Subway subs
• 1 movie ticket
• Less than $3 worth of gasoline
• My favorite meal at Chipotle (burrito bowl, chips and and iced tea)

You probably have $10 in loose change laying around the house or in your car’s cup holder.  I did.

 Your small $10 donation will help LIVESTRONG continue to provide FREE cancer navigation services to those affected by cancer:

• LIVESTRONG Guidebooks and Journals
• Help finding a doctor
• Bilingual services to the Spanish-speaking community
• Referrals to clinical trials
• Financial guidance in dealing with mounting medical bills
• Survivorship advocacy and education

As a family that has been directly touched by cancer twice within the last 5 years, LIVESTRONG ‘s navigation services helped make our cancer journey easier.  They were the first people to reach out to us when the diagnoses came in, and they’ve continued to stand by us – at all hours, without question, expecting nothing in return – over the past 5 years.  They’ll be there for you, too, when you need them.  I’m proud to support them and give back.

If everyone getting this donates $10, I’ll shatter my stretch goal for this year’s LIVESTRONG Challenge.  I’ll be riding my bike 100 miles in Austin on October 21, and I need the cycling miles between now and then.  If you’d like to really make me suffer on the bike and donate more than $10, I’ll humbly accept.

You know you’ve been wanting an easy way to make a big difference, and here it is:  http://laf.livestrong.org/goto/pearson

Just $10 for the next 10 days to make a big difference!  Please share this message on Twitter, Facebook, and with everyone you know.  We CAN help defeat the biggest health care crisis in our time and give our children a world free of cancer.

Thank you!

P.S. Please wear yellow on 10/2!

Speaking Out Against the USADA

Below is the text of an email I sent to my elected Colorado representatives, United States Senators Mark Udall and Michael Bennet, and Congressman Mike Coffman, and by copy to the rest of the Colorado Congressional Delegation, plus Congressman Jack Kingston of Georgia. In it, I urge an immediate investigation be opened into the practices of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) concerning its recently announced leveling of doping charges against Lance Armstrong.

Dear Senator Udall, Senator Bennet, Congressman Coffman, Congressman Kingston,

I am a Colorado citizen residing in Aurora, and a volunteer Senior Leader with the Lance Armstrong Foundation, known as LIVESTRONG. I am writing to implore you to act immediately to halt the baseless investigation of Lance Armstrong by the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), and to open an investigation of that agency and its CEO, Mr. Travis Tygart, for fiduciary misconduct.

On June 13, the USADA, located in Colorado Springs, announced that it was leveling charges against Mr. Armstrong, a part-time resident of Aspen, alleging that he was at the center of a 15-year doping ring in professional cycling. This investigation is yet another waste of taxpayer dollars and appears to be nothing short of a vendetta against Mr. Armstrong.

This USADA action follows the dismissal, in February, 2012, of a 20-month long, multi-agency federal grand jury investigation of Mr. Armstrong that cost untold millions of dollars and failed to produce a single indictment. That investigation, an egrieous example of prosecutorial overreach, covered many – if not all – of the allegations the USADA now brings against Mr. Armstrong. This investigation of a retired citizen who has passed over 500 drug tests without a single positive result serves no valuable purpose and calls into question the leadership of Mr. Tygart and his misdirected priorities.

The taxpayer monies now being spent by the USADA on this witchhunt would be better directed toward reducing the well-documented shortage of life-saving cancer medicines or perhaps increasing the funding to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). At a mimimum, the funds could go toward reducing the federal defecit! The economy is poor, and wasteful federal spending must be stopped. Instead, Mr. Tygart and his agency are spending money we don’t have rehashing unproven hearsay brought by anonymous sources thought to have received sweetheart deals from the USADA in exchange for their testimony against Mr. Armstrong.

Later this summer several hundred athletes will represent the United States at the London Olympics. Among them will be the 24 members of the U.S. Cycling Team, 5 of whom call Colorado home, all proven champions in their own right. This investigation will surely cast a pall over the honor and glory our cyclists so richly deserve and for which they have so tirelessly worked.

It is time to put these tired allegations against Mr. Armstrong to rest and move forward. I urge you to stop the USADA investigation of Lance Armstrong immediately.

Thank you.

Erik Pearson
Senior LIVESTRONG Leader