Team Noodad.com: Taking it to the Streets for the Jimmy Fund

I wrote an article a while back about whether or not to find out the sex of your child. The big follow up question to “Are you going to find out?” is always “Do you want a boy or a girl?” When asked this, most expectant couples reply–say it with me now–, “I don’t care…just as long as the baby’s healthy.” Unfortunately, not every family gets this wish.

On September 17, 2006, Team Noodad.com is going to help out some of those families by participating in the Boston Marathon® Jimmy Fund Walk. That’s right, Team Noodad.com is going to lace ‘em up and drag our atrophied bodies over every last inch of the famed 26.2 mile Boston Marathon route to raise money for the Jimmy Fund and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Here’s how you can help:

WALK

If you can make it to the Boston area on September 17th, bring your sneakers and walk with Team Noodad.com. All you need to do is raise $200—about how much you’d spend on booze during a night out with the boys, or how much you lost betting against the Steelers in the last Super Bowl. The Jimmy Fund Walk site provides a wealth of tools and information to help you with your fundraising. If you work in an office, it’s a cinch. Just hit up all those people who slid Girl Scout cookie order forms into the pile of TPS reports on your desk or sold you 50/50 raffle tickets to benefit their kid’s youth soccer team. Also, find out if your company will match what you raise or offer a corporate donation.

The more people who join, the more money Team Noodad.com can raise for the fight against cancer; so feel free to encourage friends to join us in the walk. Remember the buddy you helped move into a fourth floor apartment with no elevator in the middle of August? Bring him. Got compromising pictures from the bachelor party of a newlywed groom friend of yours? Encourage him to join us.  

Scared by the prospect of hoofing it 26.2 miles? No problem. There are starting points at the halfway mark and 5 miles from the finish. If you try the full route and decide to bow out, just Rosie Ruiz it to the finish line. There are plenty of refueling stations along the way, and you’ll find portable toilets at each of them—so don’t go thinking you can drop your shorts and poodad in the middle of the street like some of the runners do during the marathon!

Not convinced yet? You get to meet Noodad and Foodad, the erstwhile founders of noodad.com; as well as other members of the site. Walking a marathon also gives you a reasonable excuse to smear Vaseline all over your “high friction areas”. All kidding aside, when you cross that finish line as smiling young cancer patients cheer for you and thank you, well, that’s all the convincing you’ll ever need and an experience you’ll never forget.

DIG DEEP

Sure, you’d love to join Team Noodad.com but you: a. Live in Seattle, or Dallas, or Australia and can’t make the trip; or b. have athlete’s foot on the blisters on the corns on top of your ingrown toenails. You can still help by making a fully tax-deductible donation! Whatever you can spare towards Team Noodad.com’s goal would be greatly appreciated. Short on cash? Sell your Ab Roller, Ronco Showtime Rotisserie Grill, or Ding King on craigslist. Auction off your collection of nude Ernest Borgnine photographs on ebay. Cash in that beer can pyramid in your basement. Just find some way to help Team Noodad.com in this worthy cause.

Donating couldn’t be easier. Just go to www.jimmyfundwalk.org/teamnoodad to make a general team donation with a credit card, or mail a check made out to the Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk, PO Box 3595, Boston, MA 02241-3595 and write TEAM NOODAD.COM in the memo line. If you’re going to help us in the fight against cancer, stop what you’re doing right now, grab your credit card, and click that link to donate so you don’t forget.

We’ll be keeping you updated on our team recruiting and fundraising goals as the big day approaches. If you’ve got any questions, visit the noodad.com forum. Thanks for your help!