Students bike, run to combat cancer

Several students from Hopkins will run and bike 4,000 miles across America this summer to raise money for young adults with cancer under a program called 4K for Cancer.

Four teams of 30 people will be biking and another two teams will be running. Along the way the students will stop at cancer centers and hospitals to hand out gifts and interact with cancer survivors.

According to junior Laura “Lala” Grau, who will be running this summer, 4K for Cancer was started 15 years ago by a group of Hopkins students. The organization was later acquired by the Ulman Cancer Fund.

“The 4K run is unique in that it is the only program that runs across the entire country,” Maeve Koch, 4K for Cancer Run program coordinator, wrote in an email to The News-Letter. “In the end, the runners are not only giving support to young adults and their families affected by cancer, but they receive support and inspiration from those they meet along the way.”

This year Grau will be running from San Francisco to New York City with her boyfriend senior Alex Sivitskis.

“I lost my dad to cancer when I was 11, and I had never really come to terms with that, never really acted upon it,” Sivitskis said. “It was always something in the back of my mind. I wanted to do something more and give back to other people who are experiencing that.”

Grau convinced Sivitskis to participate. She said she is excited to be going on her second 4K for the organization.

“The first run was so healing for me,” Grau said. “My senior year of high school, my best friend Sandy passed away, so as a [college] freshman I was pissed off at cancer and didn’t want anything to do with it. Then I realized I couldn’t hide from cancer. I might as well do something for people instead of just being pissed off.”

Grau said the healing process is one reason she encouraged Sivitskis to embark on the journey.

“Even though you’re pushing yourself physically, you always remember in the back of your head that it’s absolutely nothing in comparison to what our family, loved ones, everybody else we don’t even know has to go through on a daily basis,” Sivitskis said.

Another Hopkins student, senior Megan Morrow, will also participate in the 4K For Cancer by biking from Baltimore to Seattle.

“I do have a friend whose father died of cancer as well as a teacher at my school,” Morrow, a Global Economic Change and Sustainability major, said. “This is something I am passionate about, and I’m just so excited to help and meet a lot of interesting people.”