Dear Family and Friends:

On Sunday, June 3, Ben and Todd will be running the Celebrate Israel Run, a four-mile race in Central Park sponsored by the New York Road Runners.  As many of you have seen, Ben and Todd have been training hard, running up and down Jones Road in Englewood.  This run, however, is not just for fun or exercise.

Ben wanted to make his bar mitzvah more meaningful by finding a way to help others.  It was an easy three part decision. 

First, Todd has been trying for years to convince Ben to run with him. And, as if they weren't having enough bonding time learning his bar mitzvah parsha together, they agreed to train for the race together too.

Second, the decision as to what race to run was also easy as we have so many relatives living in Israel.  They decided to run the Celebrate Israel 4 mile run the morning of the Israeli Day parade.

Finally, we had to decide what charity to contribute to. Again, the decision was easy The Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation.  This amazing organization literally saves lives! Jay Feinberg, the founder of this wonderful organization, is Ellen's oldest friend in the world and his parents are her parents' best friends.  Our family has watched this organization grow from attempting to find a match to Jay after his own Leukemia diagnosis to now saving lives of hundreds of people.  They run an international bone marrow donor registry that helps men, women and children suffering from diseases such as leukemia and lymphoma find matching donors for bone marrow transplants.

Leukemia is a random killer. It can strike any one of us at any time.  For many, there is hope of a cure through a bone marrow, blood stem cell or umbilical cord blood transplant.  Unfortunately, many people cannot find a match because there simply are not enough people in the bone marrow registries.  What is most tragic, however, is the fact that there are thousands of DNA samples that have been collected at registry drives waiting to be tested, but there simply are not enough funds to do the testing.  It costs $54 to test each collected sample.

If you can donate $54 and sponsor one test, that would be awesome. But we are not asking you to donate that much.  Instead, we are asking each person to whom we send this email to donate just $8 - one dollar for each mile that Ben and Todd will be running on June 3. For every 7 people that donate (or thereabouts), we will be able to collectively sponsor one test.  We have set up this onor circle on the Gift of Life Foundation's website ben brody's bar mitzvah donor circle. All you have to do is click on the red box to make a contribution. It is tax deductible and they will send you a receipt for your contribution.

By joining our donor circle, you donate directly to the foundation and we will be able to keep track of how much money we have raised. In addition, we will be able to follow how many test kits were processed, how many matches were found among those test kits, and how many transplants took place as a result of our donor circle.

We thank you very much for your participation and hope to share only simchas with you all.

Todd, Ellen, Ben, and Casey Brody