Linda Wortman Attended Super Bowl 52

 View Photos

This is a dream come true.  For the past 10 years, it has been my goal to raise awareness of lung cancer.  And now, by winning the Team Draft Lung Cancer Survivors Super Bowl Challenge, I feel it is possible!!  We can provide much needed money for lung cancer research at Mayo Clinic and save more lungs and more lives! ~Linda Wortman

Rochester, MN. Lung cancer survivor Linda Wortman and, her husband, Jerry are heading to Minnesota for Super Bowl LII on February 4, 2018 and the 2018 Taste of the NFL in St. Paul, Minnesota on February 3, 2018. Linda earned a trip to the Super Bowl and the Taste of the NFL by being one for the top fundraisers in our 2018 Lung Cancer Super Bowl Challenge. Team Run Like L were able to continue raising funds for the Mayo Clinic Lung Cancer Program until the day after the Super Bowl.

I am a 10 Year Lung Cancer SURVIVOR & I Never Smoked! I want to create awareness that Lung Cancer is ‘AnyBody’s’ Disease’…To Save Lungs & Lives & ‘Blow Lung Cancer Away’ by donating funds to Mayo Clinic Lung Research.

Due to UNFAIR STIGMA Lung Cancer Research is the gravely underfunded!  I decided it is time to “change the face of lung cancer”. ~ read more about Linda Wortman 

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 weave 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.  Last year, participants who raised more than $1,000< during the Super Bowl Challenge were able to commit 50% of the funds they raised to a lung cancer organization or cancer center of their choice.

Thanks to the overwhelming success of our annual Super Bowl Challenge, Team Draft is maintaining its commit to 50% if the survivors raise over $1,000, but if they raise over $5,000, their designated beneficiary will receive 80% with the remaining 20% going to support Team Draft’s mission to change the face of lung cancer.

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 2018 Lung Cancer Survivors Super Bowl Challenge, visit https://www.crowdrise.com/2018SuperBowlChallenge

Special thanks to NFL, Astra Zeneca, the Taste of the NFL 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.