In honor of my bar mitzvah in April, my sisters and I have decided to organize “Kick Gastric Cancer in the Gut!”—a walk to raise money and awareness for gastric cancer, an illness that affected our family personally when my grandfather was diagnosed over a year ago. The good news is that the U.S. has seen a decline in gastric cancer over the last 10 years. The bad news is that this disease is still one of the most prevalent cancers worldwide and is affecting younger people every year. Doctors still don’t know why this is happening. The symptoms of gastric cancer are often overlooked or mistaken for something else. When this type of cancer is not detected early, it can spread to other parts of the body and becomes more difficult to treat.

Chemotherapy is the go-to treatment for gastric cancer, but it is still not a cure. The latest research has uncovered promising developments in the areas of immunotherapy and biomarkers that make targeted drugs more effective and help block the development and growth of tumors. The doctors and researchers at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center are global leaders in this area, including Dr. David Kelsen, my grandfather’s oncologist, who is at the forefront of gastric cancer research. He has led an important MSK-Israel collaboration with the Technion Israel Institute of Technology that is working to create a better model to study GI cancers than those that exist now. This is a super-exciting development and highlights the urgent, ongoing and critical need to bring gastric cancer to the forefront of the cancer battle.

Awareness of the disease remains shockingly low and doesn’t receive enough media attention or research funding. In fact, much of the most promising new research can’t even begin without donations from individuals. In most cases, it’s only after real potential has been demonstrated by early studies—studies our support will fund—that government funding for this work becomes possible. Dr. Kelsen estimates that this MSK-Technion collaboration to develop a better model for GI cancers will cost $100,000 per year and will take two to three years.

This is where you can help! Too many of us know people who have faced a cancer diagnosis, and sometimes it’s hard to know how we can make a difference. One of the most effective ways is to make sure the crucial work being done at MSK continues to have the support it needs to drive it forward. I’ve created this page because I want to do my part to help.

Please join my family and me on Sunday morning (9 a.m.-noon), May 7, for a family-friendly run/walk at Overpeck Park in Ridgefield Park, New Jersey. Even if you can’t make it on May 7, please consider donating at https://kickcancerinthegut.org to help me reach my goal of $100,000. In the meantime, please put the walk on your calendars and spread the word to everyone you know!

Thank you so much for your support.