For the last twenty three years, Bike MS in eastern North Carolina has consistently grown in participants and fundraising. Through your hard work, we have been able to create new programs and services over the years such as our Care Management Program, Financial Assistance Program, and Kid's Fund to better serve people living with MS. We have also been able to maintain our role as the largest private funder of MS research in the world. Through the years, many new disease modifying therapies and symptom management drugs have been introduced into the market and many more promising research initiatives exploring the cure and nerve repair are underway.
The Bike MS community has dramatically improved the lives of people living with MS not only here locally, but all over the world. Everyone who has hopped on their bike and/or volunteered over the last 23 years should feel ownership and pride at what we’ve been able to accomplish.
We can do more.
Currently, it costs approximately $70,000 per person per year to live with multiple sclerosis. Unfortunately, those costs are likely to rise as they have done in the previous years. We are also finding that more people are being diagnosed with MS than ever before. The National MS Society wants to keep the momentum going to meet this increased need. We all feel a sense of urgency and the need to be more aggressive in our fight against MS.
It is in this spirit that we are raising the fundraising minimum in 2012 to $300. We will continue to have the incredibly low registration fees that you are accustomed to so we will not increase your personal expenses for the event. We have also done extensive research across the 100 Bike MS Rides around the country and increasing our fundraising minimum to $300 will put us more in line with the average minimum.
This increase will help ensure that we continue providing high quality programs and services for people living with MS as well as meeting aggressive research funding goals. We are serious about our mission and we know you are too. By taking on this challenge we know we can help even more people fighting this disease and help fund research to put an end to MS.
If you have questions about the fundraising increase, please reach out to us by phone - 919-834-0678 or by email - bike@nct.nmss.org. Thank you for your support.