Hi friends of Team FC! 

If you're on this page, you're probably a friend of Andrea's or Simone's, or you've heard about Team FC from a friend of a friend. No matter how you got here, we're happy you've found us. This is our team's site for the 2026 Badger Challenge, an annual walking, running, and biking event which funds cancer research and patient support at UW-Madison Hospitals. 

There are a few reasons we're raising money this way. First of all, the Badger Challenge gives 100% of all the money we raise to the cause; there's no overhead, none. As we're sure you know, medical research is crazy expensive, and given the recent cuts to research funding--we want to do what we can to make sure it continues. 

Second, as Jewish women, we are asking you to help because you are likely to know Jewish women, maybe be a Jewish woman yourself, be related to one (or more), now or in the future. We don't want to bore you with statistics, but... Ashkenazi Jewish women are about 10 times more likely than non-Jewish women to develop breast or ovarian cancer over the course of our lifetimes. With or without the BRCA genetic mutations (which neither Andrea nor Simone has), Jewish women are at much greater risk of developing these cancers, and we need your help fending them off. While our actual lives depend on advances in research and treatment, our hope is that yours doesn't. 

Third, our friend Susan formed her own team this year, abandoning us, and we want to beat her new team. Seriously.

If that's not the kind of thing that motivates you, that's ok. Here's a different angle. It's Simone's 60th birthday this year, and we're celebrating it at the Badger Challenge. You don't have to show up in person, though there will be cake. Whether you can make it to Madison or not, please wish Simone a happy birthday by contributing to this year's event, through our team, not Susan's. 

Simone and Andrea are alive thanks to the remarkable research at UW Hospital's Breast Center and Carbone Cancer Clinics. And we are truly grateful to our surgeons, radiologists, lymphedema specialists, oncologists, nurses, administrators, schedulers, research coordinators, ER docs, janitors and everyone else who works there. Please join us in supporting the work they do, saving people from all over the state, and through research, all over the country. 

We don't care how much money you want to donate. Every gift counts. Please just join our team--as an individual, as a family, a synagogue, a community. We are in this to live, which is why we've named our team: Team for Chayim, a Team for Life, Team fC! 

Thanks for reading, thanks for showing up, thanks for being our people, and thanks for joining us in this work. 

With love and gratitude, we remain

Andrea and Simone