About 2,000 participants ran or walked five kilometers Sunday to raise awareness and funds for pancreatic cancer.
Runners, volunteers and families filled Wilson Plaza on Sunday morning at the 22nd Annual LA Cancer Challenge. The 5K raised over $400,000 leading up to the event for pancreatic cancer research. The challenge is an annual event benefiting the Hirshberg Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research.
Julie Weiss, a frequent marathoner, has participated in the LA Cancer Challenge almost every year since her father passed away from pancreatic cancer in 2010. Members of the Hirshberg Foundation have become like family to her, she said.
Weiss, who ran 52 marathons in 52 weeks in 2012 and 2013 to raise money for pancreatic cancer research, has started a new challenge: 52 races for 52 faces, in which she dedicates each race she runs to people who have had a pancreatic cancer diagnosis.
“It’s a gift to be able to run, and when it gets hard out there, I think about these people who battled this disease and what they have to go through, and it is nothing compared to what I’m doing, so those are the real champions out there,” Weiss said. “This is my way to honor them.”
The Hirshberg Foundation’s mission is to honor its namesake, Ronald Hirshberg, by finding a cure for pancreatic cancer.
Agi Hirshberg established the foundation after losing her husband, Ronald Hirshberg, to pancreatic cancer.
After Ronald Hirshberg’s death, Agi Hirshberg said she wanted to donate toward a pancreatic department at UCLA, where Ronald Hirshberg was treated, but found that UCLA did not have a department dedicated to pancreatic diseases at the time.
Agi Hirshberg changed that, raising funds and donating to what would become the UCLA Agi Hirshberg Center for Pancreatic Diseases.
“(Ronald Hirshberg) and I were business partners, and whatever we did, we did together, and we always backed each other up,” Agi Hirshberg said. “I felt like when he died that I had to continue to fight his battle, because we’ve built businesses, we raised kids, and I had to continue.”
Weiss, who ran her 31st race out of 52 on Sunday, dedicated the race to Ronald Hirshberg.
Lisa Manheim, the chief executive director of the Hirshberg Foundation, said she is glad the money being raised through the LA Cancer Challenge will be staying at an institution where research for pancreatic cancer is being done.
Since the LA Cancer Challenge started in 1998, the event has raised over $8 million for pancreatic cancer research. While some funds stay at UCLA, other funds are earmarked for a seed grant program that helps provide startup funding for researchers to publish their work.
“It’s really an honor to have our participants walking where the research is being done,” said Manheim, who is also a UCLA alumna.
Mathis Wouters, a first-year mechanical engineering students and a member of the UCLA Club Track and Field team, won the 5K in a time just over 17 minutes, arriving at the finish line before two of his other teammates, who got second and third place.
“My grandpa had cancer very recently, and he’s OK now, he’s made it through, so that’s great, and that’s why I kind of want to support foundations like this, because they really (helped) him, so we really (have to) keep it going for other people as well,” Mathis said.
