News

South End Residents to Run in Boston Marathon

by Submitted by MGH Marathon Team
Saturday Mar 14, 2020

This article is from the March 12, 2020 issue of South End News.


Three South End residents will run in the 124th Boston Marathon® on April 20th as part of the Massachusetts General Hospital Marathon (MGH) Team. Cassie Clavin, Ryan Levasseur, and Rosemary Farahmand will be supporting two important causes: the MassGeneral Hospital for Children Pediatric Cancer Team and the Emergency Response Fund. Runners include former patients and family members, MGH employees and longtime hospital supporters, who will join an estimated 30,000 runners along the 26.2-mile course that spans from Hopkinton to Boston's Boylston Street. Funds raised by the runners will benefit essential patient services as well as research and training programs at the hospital.
Clavin and Farahmand will be raising money for the Emergency Response Fund. Clavin is running her second Boston Marathon® to support the efforts of the MGH Emergency Response team because MGH has been an integral part of her younger sister's health, following diagnosis and treatment of a rare genetic disorder called Aicardi Syndrome. Farahmand is running her first marathon to give back to MGH, after her father received four weeks of care at MGH following a bicycling accident in May 2011.
Levasseur will be raising money for the MGHfC Cancer Center. He is running to honor his friend that was diagnosed with late-stage Thyroid Cancer in 2016 and received treatment through MGH.
The runners supporting our pediatric cancer mission aim to raise more than $1,075,000 for cancer care and research initiatives that will lead to improvements in cure rates and enhance the quality of life for the hospital's youngest patients. Those supporting the Emergency Response Fund hope to collectively raise $430,000 of critical funding to the hospital's emergency medicine and disaster preparedness efforts that benefit victims worldwide.
Since the founding of the Mass General Marathon Team in 1998, runners have raise over $15.5 million to support research and activities for children with cancer and over $2.3 million for emergency and disaster response since 2014.
"Each of our runners has dedicated countless hours to their training and fundraising efforts," says Peter L. Slavin, MD, president of MGH. "On behalf of the MGH community, I salute and thank these individuals who dedicate so much of themselves to support our efforts to improve the health of others."
To learn more about the MGHfC pediatric and MGH emergency response teams, please go to https://giving.massgeneral.org/boston-marathon.