Our Initiatives

The "Our Initiatives" column provides an update on some of our ongoing projects.

Team Sarcoma 2006 Bike Tour: Register Now

Team Sarcoma 2006 is an internationally coordinated event to raise public awareness of sarcoma. Think of it as an "International Bike, Run, Walk, and Swim for Sarcoma Awareness" event. The press and TV coverage of Team Sarcoma 2006 will help make tens of thousands of people, worldwide, aware of this devastating and deadly cancer. Such awareness can potentially affect the lives of thousands of families and aid in directing money toward research to find methods to diagnose and cure this disease. Team Sarcoma 2006 will take place in Denmark from July 1-7, 2006. On July 1 2006, the cyclists forming Team Sarcoma 2006 will begin a bike tour in Denmark that will take them from the Danish peninsula to the Danish islands of Fyn, Tåsinge, and Møn and have them bike into Copenhagen on July 7th. The event is targeted at drawing 100 cyclists from countries all over the world, including sarcoma patients, caregivers, physicians, and those concerned about cancer. We are also recruiting about 15 volunteers a day to help out with the sag wagons, water stops, and so on. We anticipate cyclists from many countries as sarcoma knows no borders.

You can download the bike tour announcement, the registration form, and a detailed bike tour brochure from our Team Sarcoma 2006 webpage. The cost of the bike tour (which is shown on the registration form and in the detailed brochure) is very affordable because it includes everything but your trip to/from Denmark—for example, the price in a double occupancy Category 3 room is only around $1350 and includes your bike, helmet, all living accommodations, all of your meals but one lunch, and entrance to all of the attractions we’ll visit along the way (e.g., Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen and a sail on an old wooden Danish sailing ship). If you bring your own bike, you’ll save about $100 (some airlines may ship your bike free or at a small cost). There is a tenting option (which costs around $1000) and if you bring your tent, you save about $100. You can optionally get a tandem instead of two bicycles.

If you can't join us in Denmark, consider the following. The 100 cyclists that make up Team Sarcoma 2006 in Denmark will be joined by cyclists, runners, walkers and swimmers who will bike, run, walk or swim where they live on the very same days that Team Sarcoma 2006 is biking in Denmark. These people form local Virtual Team Sarcomas in their home countries. We expect to have several hundred people involved in the various Virtual Team Sarcomas in a dozen or more countries worldwide. Members of a Virtual Team Sarcoma will hand out material describing sarcoma to people they encounter to help promote an awareness of sarcoma. Many Virtual Team Sarcomas have press and TV coverage. You can learn about forming a Virtual Team Sarcoma by clicking here.

Our "What is Sarcoma" Facts Sheet and Our Sarcoma Ribbon

Our "What is sarcoma?" facts sheet has now been translated into 18 languages and will soon appear in over 20 languages. Based on these translations, we have designed a "Sarcoma Ribbon" that supports one of our mantras, "Sarcoma knows no borders". Sarcoma is a world-wide cancer — it knows no national borders. Our "Sarcoma Ribbon" reflects this as the word "sarcoma" appears on it in many of the world's languages. Sarcoma is a cancer of the connective tissues, such as nerves, muscles, joints, bone, or blood vessels. Sarcoma can arise anywhere in the body — i.e., sarcoma knows no borders within the body. Nor does it know age borders or genders. If you click on the ribbon, it will open up and you can read it more easily. The background of the ribbon consists of the small round blue cells that identify a particular sarcoma, Ewing's sarcoma.

We are planning on turning the sarcoma ribbon into a wrist band and to also use it on our Team Sarcoma Bike Tours T-shirts and biking jerseys. Please contact us if you would like to assist us in translating the Sarcoma Facts to one or more additional languages.

Music CD, The Circle, to Benefit Sarcoma Research: On Sale Now

Singer songwriter Ron Martin is a multi-instrumentalist from North Carolina. He is sharing the proceeds from the sale of his CD, The Circle, with the Liddy Shriver Sarcoma Initiative to help fund sarcoma awareness and research. The CD makes a very nice holiday, birthday, anniversary or graduation gift. Click here to find out more details.

Feedback, Volunteer, and/or Questions

We would appreciate receiving any comments or questions regarding the content of this column as well as a note from those of you who would like to volunteer to help us with our efforts. Click here to send us a note.