My late wife, Jenny Harman, and I were married for 18 years. We have two kids, Claire (15) and Cooper (10). Jenny battled epithelioid sarcoma over six years, and the culmination of radiation, surgery, and numerous rounds with multiple types of chemo robbed her of her mobility, her independence, and at times, her dignity and hope. We primarily did treatment at Duke, traveling to and from here in Concord for her appointments, without realizing the potential support we could have had right here in the Charlotte area.

After Jenny passed away in Feb 2023, I knew I wanted to do something to raise awareness of sarcoma and to help families like ours. I kept thinking about the blessing of mobility and independence – because you don’t know how much they mean until they are taken away. In addition, when people described Jenny, they often referred to her as being a light for them. This became sort of a mantra for how we talked about her and honored her legacy – for our family to carry on her light moving forward.

This all led to starting what we would call the Sarcoma Sucks 5k in March 2025. The event would include a standard 3.1 mile run – but would finish with a cooldown 0.10 mile lap to make the total distance 3.20 miles in honor of Jenny’s March 20th birthday.

In doing the work to get the event off the ground, I connected with the Move For Jenn Foundation in Charlotte. They do amazing work funding clinical trials to help advance sarcoma research. You can learn more about MFJ’s story and mission here.

I reached out to Jenn and found her to be very receptive and generous with time and insight. I really started to see so many parallels between what I wanted to do with Sarcoma Sucks and what MFJ was already doing so well in funding clinical trials and supporting families impacted by sarcoma. 

MFJ has a focus on Being the Light – an amazing connection to our own Jenny – and the spirit of the organization just seemed to be so similar to what was on our hearts and our values.

The inaugural Sarcoma Sucks 5k+ had more than 200 registrants, and we donated more than $12,000 to the Sarcoma Foundation of America. As we were planning the event, Jenny’s uncle, Jeff Grose, was diagnosed with leiomyosarcoma. Unfortunately by the time the cancer was found, it was quite advanced and aggressive.

Jeff passed away at the age of 63 in May of 2025 and is our third family member to succumb to sarcoma. Jeff is preceded by his mother, Faye Grose, who passed from fibrous histiocytoma (now more commonly referred to as undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma) at the age of 67.

All three were taken far too soon.

Our family is saddened but not deterred by the way sarcoma has impacted us. We are more determined than ever to help support research that can improve efficiency and effectiveness of treatments. We are committed to finding ways to provide more support and more information to families like ours that don’t know where to turn.

We’ve seen that Move For Jenn is committed to this as well, and we love the organization’s focus on transparency as they fund clinical trials that can lead to a breakthrough and create more sarcoma survivors. 

Sarcoma is often called “The Forgotten Cancer” because it is rare and thus underfunded, with limited resources, limited clinical trials, and limited answers for families in need.

Your support of Sarcoma Sucks will allow us to coordinate with Move for Jenn to fund targeted research initiatives at Levine Cancer Institute in Charlotte, NC. These trials are designed to explore new patient treatment options including:

• Genomic profiling of sarcoma tumors – more than 100 pediatric cases are being analyzed (sarcoma makes up 15% of pediatric cancers and 1% of adult cancers)
• Pinpointing which treatments are most effective against different types of sarcoma tumors, which cuts out unnecessary therapies for sarcoma patients (and unnecessary side effects). This is critical because so little is still known about sarcoma that the same treatments are used as a one-size-fits-all, when more specifically tailored treatments could fight the disease more effectively

We’ve been blown away by the support we’ve seen with the Sarcoma Sucks 5k’s inaugural event, plus an amazing Sarcoma Awareness Month fundraiser in July that contributed $6,000 to MFJ to complete funding of a sarcoma-specific clinical trial.

We hope you will continue to support us as we head into Year 2 – because Sarcoma Still Sucks!