Sapienza is executive director and founder of Chris4Life Colon Cancer Foundation. The organization is hosting the Scope It Out 5K run/walk in the District on March 25.
What’s Chris4Life’s goal?
So our main goal is to be a catalyst in the fight against colon cancer. Our mission is three-pronged. It’s to fund cutting-edge research across the country, to treat patients while, unfortunately, people are still being diagnosed, and to obviously make people aware of the lifesaving screening and prevention that there is for colon cancer.
Can you tell readers about the Scope it Out 5K?
So, the way that we, Chris4Life, was founded is actually in honor and memory of my mom, Chris Sapienza, who was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer when she was 56 years old, and she passed away in May of 2009. But before she passed away, a couple of years, she had been doing this walk or run called the Scope It Out 5K, and we decided one year, the year that she was … getting fairly sick, 2009, to do the Scope It Out here in D.C. And at that time it was like the largest colorectal cancer, colon cancer run/walk in the country. You know, there’s nothing like the Race for the Cure for colon cancer, and so my mom was like “well why don’t we try to raise some money and really do this?” … I think we raised about $20,000 that year and that was kind of the spark at least inside me to really start this foundation.
What has been your favorite part of the event in years past?
The best part is when you’re standing at the start line and there’s 4,000 people, there’s thousands of people that you know have been affected by this disease and that are coming together as a community. And it always is overwhelming to me.
– Naomi Jagoda
