If you’re not a friend of mine on the all important Facebook or just don’t pay attention much, then newsflash: I’m trying to raise money! Why would you want to do that, Yak? Who is the money for? Is gluten free food really that expensive?

Well it is, but there is a group who needs funding more than my hungry pig of a self.

The LA Cancer Challenge takes place on October 28th this year, and I’m raising money for the Hirshberg Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research. The foundation not only raises awareness for pancreatic cancer, it also funds patient care, screenings and research to find better treatments and cures for this terrible cancer.

Did you know that for all stages of pancreatic cancer combined, the one-year relative survival rate is 20%, and the five-year rate is only 4%?

Did you know an estimated 44,000 people are diagnosed with pancreatic cancer each year?

Did you know that, currently, pancreatic cancer is the fourth-ranked cause of cancer related death in the US amongst both men and women? Despite this, the federal government invests less money in pancreatic cancer than in any other leading cancer.

Pancreatic cancer took my grandmother before I was born. I bet you have friends or family that have been effected by it as well.

So my question is what can I do to get people to donate. Badgering Facebook only works for so long before people either hide me or scroll more quickly down their news feed. I began to wonder how to get people more excited about this whole thing.

The Cancer Challenge culminates in a 5k/10k race that takes place three days before Halloween. Obviously the answer is a challenge to friends and family, that if completed I will run the 10k dressed like something. But what? A quick search shows that any Yak costume is well over $1,000, except for this which is apparently made of yak hair but isn’t quite what I was looking for.

I scrolled through site after site of costumes looking for something that was (a) affordable and (b) I could run in. Then I remembered this picture of myself from a couple years ago.

Lucky me, penguin suits on Amazon are available for $20.

So, friends, family, acquaintances, strangers, aliens, if you can help me raise $500 by 11:59 pm on the 20th of October (must leave time for the costume to ship/not run out of stock!) I will run the 10k dressed as a penguin. I have over 600 Facebook friends and who knows who else reads this blog. So if everyone gives more than about $0.80 this will happen. Your call.