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This past summer, Robert Danis ’16 joined his father, George, and brother, Joe, to complete the 2020 Pan-Massachusetts Challenge (PMC), a fundraising bike-a-thon that benefits the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

But the Danis family’s involvement with the challenge did not begin there. Robert, a cancer survivor, first learned about the PMC 10 years ago, when a team reached out to him and asked him to be their pedal partner. Since then, George has completed the challenge every year in honor of his son.

This year, Robert felt it was his turn to join the ride. After seeing people wearing shirts saying “Commit, you’ll figure it out” at the race each year, Robert decided it was finally time to put that saying into action. After all, 2020 marked his dad’s 10th ride and 10 years since his last cancer treatment. “It seemed like a perfect fit,” Robert says.

Diagnosed with lymphoma in July 2009, Robert spent more than two years receiving extensive chemotherapy and radiation treatment from the Jimmy Fund Clinic at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Children’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. So on Christmas Day 2019, he gifted his father a letter, committing himself to riding alongside him this summer.

Unfortunately, due to COVID-19, the official PMC could not happen as they had hoped. That did not stop the Danises, who decided to participate in the reimagined challenge and biked by themselves. While the mental preparation for the race was no challenge for Robert, the physical aspect of training was another story. “Living in Boston, I quickly realized that it would be difficult to go on 20-plus-mile training rides throughout the city,” he said, “so I started looking around at nearby bike trails and found the Minuteman Bikeway trail, which spans Alewife to Bedford and lasts 10 miles each way.”

PMC has been a huge part of Robert’s healing process. Seeing his dad train and ride each year, he says, has been a constant reminder of how lucky he is to have had a successful treatment. At the same time, it is a reminder there is much work ahead to find a cure. “My ride this summer was, in a way, for everyone who helped me along the way, whether it be doctors, nurses, my family, etc.,” he says. “It seemed like the least I could do to raise money and spread awareness of a great event like the PMC. “It was also for the patients that I got to know during my two-plus-year treatment, some who are with us today, and some who aren’t.”