Hello! Thank you for visiting my fundraising page! 

In June of 2022, I along with the rest of the Texas 4000 team will embark on the longest annual bike ride from the University of Texas at Austin to Anchorage, Alaska. This ride is dedicated to fundraising for cancer research and support services across the United States. As riders, we are responsible for planning the routes, finding host families, preparing the cancer awareness programs, and raising at least $4,500—a dollar per mile ridden. I know none of this is possible without the support of people like you, and that’s why today I am asking you to make a tax-deductible donation to help us in the fight against cancer. 

I'm ecstatic to share with you why I am a Texas 4000 rider:

As healthy people, we have the privilege to choose the reasons we get out of bed each morning. But, for those facing cancer, their reason is hope– hope found in things that remind them that life is still filled with light. While scientists and doctors are on the frontlines of their battle, the soldiers behind the scenes– the people who ignite those embers of light– help give them strength. Biking to Alaska with Texas 4000 is an opportunity to be that soldier. I ride for every piece of life that cancer takes from people— whether it’s the lives of passionate teachers who must trade their love of teaching for chemotherapy appointments, the children who grow up in the hospitals isolated from their friends, or the parents who are too sick to bathe their babies in the sink and listen to their giggles. I ride for the time spent living— taking in life and doing the things we love— that is stolen by cancer and never returned. I ride because if cancer were eliminated, people can return to the embraces of their loved ones and live life on their terms– restoring so much love and light in the world. 

I ride for Peggy, my first neighbor in the United States, whose upbeat laughter is still ingrained in my memory, and who gifted me the most precious sand dollar that still hangs on my window curtain three years after she passed away from cancer. I ride for my aunt, who always welcomes me with a warm embrace and her signature soup every time I visit her in Iran. I ride for my aunt’s daughter, who couldn’t be there to hold my aunt’s hand as she battled breast cancer. I ride for my grandfather, who battled cancer throughout his life and passed away this past November.

I ride for you, because you have a big heart to read my Why, and that inspires me to keep going.

To Alaska and Back,

Kimia