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Community Corner

Darienite Leads Charitable Campaign for Stamford Hospital

"Team JR - A Noble Cause" joins the Hope-in-Motion Walk in Downtown Stamford Sunday to benefit the Bennett Cancer Center.

When Darien's Lawrence "Lars" Noble takes to the streets of downtown Stamford today with a team of children and adults he's assembled for a fundraising walk to benefit Stamford Hospital, odds are he'll be thinking of a severe pain in his gut while heading home on the 3:07 train from New York five years ago.

That plus the death of a good friend and business partner a few weeks ago from aggressive cancer.

And perhaps most of all, he'll be thinking of J.R. Schoen, a 8-year-old baseball player he coached at Little League in 2008. The boy had to take a leave from team activities for medical treatments for brain cancer, which proved fatal.

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GIVING BACK IN GRATITUDE

Noble is counting his blessings: He's had a fabulous career, he survived a near scrape with mortality, and he has a wife and two young sons he's devoted to.

And so he's giving back by creating a team to participate in Stamford Hospital's 15th annual Hope in Motion Walk, Run & Ride event to benefit the hospital's Bennett Cancer Center.

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When Noble received a call from the hospital's fundraising arm two years ago, he couldn't say no.

What comes to mind is the call he placed to 911 while returning home from the city with excruciating pains in his belly on October 18, 2005. He was met at Stamford's MetroNorth Station by an ambulance that sped him to Stamford Hospital.

"I'm very lucky to be here," Noble said. "It was very touch-and-go."

Noble, a sturdy former athlete in high school and college, was diagnosed with pancreatitis, an inflammation of the enzyme-producing pancreas. He was kept on a ventilator for 12 days and fed intravenously the entire time. In the course of his treatment he was transferred to Stamford's affiliate, New York Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital.

He didn't return home for three weeks.

"Stamford Hospital did a wonderful job of treating me," he says. "In blunt terms, they saved my life."

CANCER TOUCHES MANY

Noble's business associate at his New York City executive recruiting firm, DHR International, wasn't so lucky. Four months after a cancer diagnosis and the best treatment available, he died, leaving behind a wife and young daughter.

"As you get older, you are more and more impacted by this disease [cancer]," he said. "We all know cancer survivors and friends who are related to someone with cancer."

Two years ago, the mother of a member of the Little League team he was coaching called to say her son, J.R. Schoen, was having headaches and might not make it to practice.

"It was then she told me he had been treated for brain cancer the previous summer and they thought he had beat it," Noble says. "They hoped they weren't going down that road again."

"Unfortunately, they were."

J.R. attended two practices before he was back in treatment. His experience profoundly affected Noble's own sons, Grant and Willie.

The Noble family had already teamed up for a Hope-in-Motion walk the previous year. After J.R. died, Noble invited his parents and sister to join his team and he changed the name to "Team JR - A Noble Cause."

As Noble relates this story, his eyes well up with tears. His boys had a hard time dealing with the death of a friend and teammate, he says.

He found it deeply gratifying when Willie, now 9, noticed the leaves unfolding and flowers blooming this spring, prompting him to ask: "When do we do the Hope-in-Motion walk for JR?

TEAMWORK AND MULTITASKING

Noble has risen to become vice chair of fundraising for the Hope-in-Motion Event.

"It's a lot of work and time I don't have, but you find it," he said.

Early on, he says, he learned to multitask when, fresh out of college, he landed a job as an advance man for President Ronald Reagan. The job took him around the world, including the 1985 Geneva peace summit with Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

"My job was to help set the stage for Presidential visits and to make sure the President looked good on the evening news," he said with satisfaction.

He quickly learned to be proficient at juggling multiple tasks at once, using his time efficiently.

ENTERTAINING PARTICIPANTS

The annual Hope-in-Motion event features self-selected teams riding bikes, running or walking designated routes to fulfill pledges from donors. The 3.1-mile walking route begins and ends at Columbus Park.

Special features this year will be a Big Apple Circus stilt walker, who will demonstrate his skills at Columbus Park and along the route. Israeli folk dancers, Dancing with Leng and Yigal, will perform in front of the Ferguson Library and a community choir will sing at Columbus Park.

As many as 4,500 participants are expected, rain or shine.

Hope-in-Motion has raised $7 million for patients and their families at the cancer facility since it began 15 years ago; the goal is to raise $1 million today.

Online donations will be accepted for the campaign through September 30, 2010.

As of Sunday morning, Team JR - A Noble Cause has raised $7,040 and 21 team members had been recruited. The fundraising goal is $10,000 and recruitment goal is 25.

For more information, visit www.hope-in-motion.org.

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