Lungstrong Last Call

By CSP Team
9 days and counting…next Saturday, October 17th Team Charlotte Smarty Pants will be participating in Lungstrong 2009, a 15K run and 5K run/walk in Cornelius (Lake Norman). As most of you have read previously, Lungstrong supports lung cancer awareness and benefits LUNGevity Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to funding lung cancer research. You Smarties are all fully aware of how near & dear Charlotte Smarty Pants is to us and many of you know the history and evolution of CSP. For most of us at CSP our involvement came at the expense of having lost co-chief founding mommy, Jennifer Lisman Bunich, to non-smoking lung cancer in February 2008. Jen was 36-years-old at the time and left behind a beautiful 2 1/2-yr-old daughter and husband of 4 years. Jen had never smoked a day in her life, and in fact, died without knowing her diagnosis or that she was even terminally ill.

Jen B. was the kind of girl that made you raise your standards, she was such a go-getter and rarely complained of the enormous amount of responsibility she shouldered. The fact that she was involved with even creating/launching Charlotte Smarty Pants on top of her daily life still humbles us to this day. We KNOW how much work this takes and we can’t comprehend how Jennifer found time to run a website in between working a full-time job, raising a young daughter and being friends with 1/2 of Charlotte. She gave 110% of herself to everyone and was always the first to call or email for a lunch date. So it’s in loving memory of a dear friend and admired woman, who did so much for so many and rarely asked for anything in return that we have banded together to fight the terrible disease that took her too soon.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of ALL cancer deaths in the U.S…more than breast, prostate, colorectal and pancreatic cancers COMBINED. Yet, it is the least funded cancer for research. Approximately 50% of the people diagnosed with lung cancer have never smoked or are former smokers. We can’t tell you the number of people we’ve met since having lost Jen that have a friend or family member battling this or have lost their fight against lung cancer. Particularly alarming are the number of non-smoking young women being affected. Our hope is that one day this event grows as big as the Komen Race for the Cure and to get there we need your help!

TO JOIN:
We’d love to have you all sign up to walk/run with our team next Saturday! Simply click here and select “register”, search Charlotte Smarty Pants and follow the steps to join our team. The 15K starts at 7:45am and the 5K run/walk starts at 7:50am. We will have a CSP table set up at the crack of dawn, so please come by & introduce yourself, we will start together as a team! We will also have our very first run of the swankiest Smar-tees ever, hot off the press just in time for Lungstrong (see the design at top of blog)! These hot pink beauts going to be for sale at the event for $15, all proceeds will go to Lungstrong. We will have these available for sale throughout the year as we print more and do more events with all proceeds going to Lungstrong. Our Smarty thanks to Rachel Busby for the new t-shirt design & JB memorial race bibs.

TO DONATE:
To help Team Charlotte Smarty Pants as we wage our fight against lung cancer and remember those affected, click here to donate and follow the steps. Select any team member to donate to, it all counts towards our team goal.

We (Jen P., Ashley, Courtenay, Dana, Jenny & Tracy) thank you all SO much in advance. Your efforts to join us or donate to the cause in memory of Jen B. mean the world to each of us at Team Charlotte Smarty Pants. Let’s Get Smarty and find a cure!