Dear Friends,

Due to my position, I cannot generally fundraise, but I can with my colleagues and so I reach out with a request...

Would you please consider supporting me and team Climb for Coop? This weekend is the Courage Classic bike ride, and the 30-ish members of our team will be riding to raise money for Children’s Hospital. The money our team raises will be directed to the cancer center at Children’s, funding cancer research and care.

Cooper ("Coop") Deming was one of my son, Zach's, very good friends...they were in diapers together in the infant room at childcare, moved to the toddler room together, went to preschool together, and started at the same elementary school. Coop and Zach loved fishing together, doing so at Sloan's lake, the Idaho Springs Trout Pond, in the mountain while camping, and even just when doing a hike together. Cooper and Zach started middle school together at Skinner. At the end of his 6th grade year, in June 2016, Cooper was diagnosed with brain cancer. He fought hard, and many, many treatments were tried, but after 11 lmonths, Cooper died in the arms of his parents, in May 2017, a month before his 12th birthday. An autopsy revealed that the tumor was a diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma, or DIPG – an aggressive and incurable cancer that is underfunded and under researched.

I would greatly appreciate your contribution and any amount helps! Also, fundraising is open until Aug. 31, 2023.

This is a picture of Cooper (blonde) and Zach (redhead) discussing life as 2 year old on the kiddie ferris wheel at Lakeside.

Thank you,

Beth Faragher