Love for Luca 5K Run/Walk

The Love for Luca Committee had an easy decision in choosing Infinite Love for Kids Fighting Cancer as our charity partner.  The 501c3 foundation was founded by Middletown resident Andrea Verdone Gorsegner after her daughter Natalie was diagnosed with high-risk leukemia at age 3; Natalie is now a healthy 14-year-old.  The foundation runs multiple fundraisers each year, and all proceeds go directly to funding new pediatric research and family assistance.  Since 2013 the small but mighty foundation, powered entirely by volunteers, has helped hundreds of families and given over $1.9 million to pediatric cancer research.

Infinite Love provided tremendous support to Luca and the Iacono family throughout his course of treatment and is still there for them to this day.  From Luca’s mom Michele, “Luca once said, ‘I love Andrea, she is better than child life at the hospital.’” 

In addition to helping families both financially and emotionally, Infinite Love has funded grants to include research for childhood cancer.

The 2023 Love for Luca 5K Run/Walk, along with Hockey In Middletown's fundraising efforts, awarded three $25,000 grants in Luca's name to: 

• Dr. Amit Sabnis with The Regents of the University of California, San Francisco for  his research exploring "Combinations to exploit replication stress in PAX3-FOX01 rhabdomyosarcoma."

•  Dr. Charles Keller w/ Children's Cancer Therapy Development Institute for his "FDA-approved FOX01 agonist(s) to treat rhabdomyosarcoma."

• Dr. Yanbin Zheng at the University of Texas - Southwestern Medical Center for their proposal "Ectopic PLAG1 plus loss of p53 drives rhabdomyosarcoma." (Second grant to continue their research from 2022).

The 2022 Love for Luca 5K Run/Walk awarded two $25,000 grants in Luca's name to:

• Dr. Patience Odeniyide of The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, for their proposal "Identifying drivers of treatment resistance in HRAS-mutant rhabdomyosarcoma."

•  Dr. Yanbin Zheng at The University of Texas - Southwestern Medical Center for their proposal "Ectopic PLAG1 plus loss of p53 drives rhabdomyosarcoma."

Thank you so much for registering, becoming a fundraiser, becoming a company sponsor, and/or donating to the Love for Luca 5K Run/Walk as we partner with this incredible organization.