The sweaty, smily faces of those who participated in Operation Sweat were a common site at Thornhill’s Spynga workout studio. The three-hour event consisted of one hour each of cycling, body conditioning and yoga in order to raise money for leukemia research. The original goal of raising $6,000 dollars was significantly exceeded with the grand total being over $9,000 dollars.
Imagine a Cure for Leukemia is the not-for-profit organization behind the event and founder, Nara Abrams, has been keeping it running since it started in 2006.
Nara Abrams/Founder/Imagine a Cure for Leukemia
“My mom had leukemia and she had finished her first round of treatment very successfully at that time (in 2006). I wanted to celebrate that by raising awareness and money for research, she said.”
Abrams wanted to continue running the organization in memory of her mother, Miriam Segal, after she died from the disease in 2007 and said she hopes others don’t experience the loss she has.
Public relations consultant, Elissa Freeman, participated in the event and helped with the live social media. She has known Abrams for a long time and said she feels for her, knowing about her family’s history with leukemia.
Elissa Freeman
“It’s so admirable and emotional to see how much work she’s putting into trying to find a cure and how much work she’s put into the charity herself,” she said.
Freeman said tweeting and posting pictures from the event was motivational because she could share minute-to-minute updates about what was going on for people who weren’t there.
“I think that part of Nara’s success is to keep people interested in the charity and to create interesting ways for people to participate and donate,” she said.
Freeman made a personal donation to participate and said this workout was different than her usual ones because everyone worked together toward a common goal.
“The best part is that they exceeded their goal. They wanted to reach $6,000 (dollars) and they just basically blew through that, so that was quite amazing,” she said.
It wasn’t just the participants who were passionate about finding a cure, Coach J led the body conditioning portion of the event filled with no shortage of jumping, burpees, mountain climbing and ab work.
Coach J
“When Nara first approached me about doing it, maybe eight or nine months ago, I said ‘Just tell me the date and I’ll be there,’” he said.
He continued, “It’s important that we’re on the forefront, it’s important that we be knowledgable about what’s going on, what’s going on in research,” he said.
Coach J said he tried to make the event’s freestyle body conditioning as crazy as possible.
“There was a lot of really good feedback on how tough some of the intervals were and how sweaty people got. They couldn’t believe how sore they got just using their own body weight. So it was really good to see that side of it as well,” he said.
Abrams said the organization is close to reaching the $1 million dollar mark thanks to years worth of donations collected through events like Operation Sweat.
“A way to promote well-being is staying active and fit and it just seems to make sense that we’re doing that and raising money for a cause that’s important,” she said.
To find out more about Imagine a Cure for Leukemia, visit their website at www.imagineacureforleukemia.com.
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