Atlanta, GA. Our 6th annual Lung Cancer Survivors Super Bowl Challenge kicked off on November 1, 2019, and it concluded at 3amEST on December 30, 2019. This unique fund raising challenge gives lung cancer survivors the opportunity to raise funds for public awareness and cutting-edge research that is giving new hope to those battling this often misunderstood disease. The top three fundraising Teams, Angela Downs, Lisa Moran,and Team Hope were announced on December 30, 2019.

Angie and Jake Downs represented Team Draft at Super Bowl 54 and the 29th Taste of the NFL.

I’m thrilled to have won the Super Bowl Challenge and, in the process, raised money for lung cancer research. Most importantly, I’m very excited to attend the big game as a representative of all those battling lung cancer so we can increase awareness of this horrible disease. ~ Angela Downs

Lisa Moran and her sister, Heather, represented Team Draft at the NFL Pro Bowl in Orlando, Florida.

Fundraising was tough this year. Getting to donate $10,000 to fund lung cancer research is the win. Going to Orlando to see Nick Chubb in his first Pro Bowl is an exciting bonus. I can’t wait for the Pro Bowl experience! ~ Lisa Moran

“Team Hope”, Christie Malnati, Kathy Weber and Sandy Shea represented at the 29th Taste of the NFL in Hollywood, Florida.

First of all, thank you, thank you for this amazing opportunity!  I am truly grateful!  Team Hope is focused on raising awareness and understanding about lung cancer!  We want to continue to raise even more money for research that will save lives!  And finally, I look forward to seeing you again!
 
As a 7 year lung cancer survivor, I am blessed and grateful for the life I now live with more intentionality.  People diagnosed with any cancer all want to survive, and yet what the Chris Draft Family Foundation helps us to understand and focus on, is not only to survive, but to thrive in the “new lives” we are blessed with.  I have had the great good fortune to meet other lung cancer survivors, learning and sharing with them how to become advocates to raise money and awareness about lung cancer. Together, we can all make a real difference.  Most recently, coming together as Team Hope with Kathy and Sandy, two other Stage 1a lung cancer survivors, to raise money for the International Lung Cancer Foundation, has been a great experience!  The money we have raised will go toward research for an early detection diagnostic test.  If we can discover and diagnose lung cancer at an early stage, “catch it in time,” we will be able to save so many more lives.   
 
My hope, my goal, when we go to the Taste of the NFL to represent the Chris Draft Family Foundation, is to communicate on a larger stage, the immediacy of action we need to take in order to eradicate lung cancer.  
 
I am thankful for my life today; I am thankful for my lung cancer survivor friends and Team Hope; I am thankful for the support of the Chris Draft Family Foundation and the opportunity to share the good news that research into early detection diagnostic testing for lung cancer will eventually be a real game changer – a game changer that will save lives! 
Go Team Hope! ~ Christie Malnati

 

 

The survivors earned the opportunity to share their powerful stories with key individuals with influence from across the country.

The lung cancer survivors that raise over $5,000 will be able to designate a beneficiary (Cancer Center or LC Organization) that will receive 90% of their raised funds (-fees) and the remaining 10% will support Team Draft’s mission to change the face of lung cancer.

Founded by Draft and his late wife Keasha, who died of lung cancer in 2011 at the age of 38, Team Draft is dedicated to raising lung cancer awareness and increasing badly needed research funding through its Campaign To Change The Face Of Lung Cancer, which is committed to shattering the misconception that lung cancer is a “smoker’s disease.” The centerpiece of Team Draft’s Campaign is its annual Lung Cancer Survivors Super Bowl Challenge.

As Draft explains, “the Super Bowl Challenge gives us a unique opportunity to use the overwhelming media coverage surrounding the Super Bowl as a platform to raise critical public awareness about lung cancer on an international level.  With the game as a backdrop, we can use each survivor’s story to we

ave a broader narrative about the state of lung cancer and the hope that now exists for those battling the disease.”  And Team Draft’s efforts are paying off.

“The Super Bowl Challenge achieves amazing things in terms of public awareness and changing perceptions about lung cancer,” says Dr. Ross Camidge, the Director of Thoracic Oncology at Colorado University Cancer Center, the cancer center where two of last year’s Super Bowl Challenge winners were treated.

In addition to raising critical public awareness, the Super Bowl Challenge also raises funds for lung cancer organizations and treatment centers across North America.

Of this aspect of the Super Bowl Challenge, Dr. Camidge says, “you need somebody working on the national level. You need somebody working on the local level. Everybody wins.”

For the survivors who participate, the Super Bowl Challenge is so much more than just a fundraiser.

“Team Draft has really helped boost our family’s spirits during this challenging time,” says Dr. Lucy Kalanithi. In 2015, Lucy and her husband, Dr. Paul Kalanithi, won Team Draft’s inaugural Super Bowl Challenge and were able to join Team Draft in Phoenix, Arizona for Super Bowl 49.  Paul went on to write the bestselling memoir When Breath Becomes Air — a powerful and moving chronicle of his life and lung cancer journey — before passing away at the age of 37.

2016 Super Bowl Challenge winner, Kim Ringen says, “As a lung cancer survivor, I would highly recommend to anybody to put your hat in the ring because it is so uplifting to be associated with a group of people that are coming together to make a difference.”

To learn more about Team Draft’s 2020 Lung Cancer Survivors Super Bowl Challenge, visit: https://www.crowdrise.com/o/en/campaign/2020-lung-cancer-survivors-super-bowl-challenge

Special thanks to NFL, Astra Zeneca, and all of our Team Draft supporters for helping make this experience possible.

About Team Draft

Team Draft, an initiative of the Chris Draft Family Foundation, is dedicated to raising lung cancer awareness and increasing research funding by shattering the misconception that lung cancer is a “smoker’s disease.”  Despite the fact that between 20,000 and 30,000 people who have never smoked are diagnosed with lung cancer in the United States each year, the smoking stigma negatively impacts lung cancer research funding, Team Draft is out to change all that. To learn more about Team Draft, share your story, or make a donation, please visit www.teamdraft.org.