This article has been updated with a correction. The final quote was originally published incomplete.
While most AU students will be focused on their potential exam scores during finals week, Jeremy Smith will be focused on a different number: $50,000 and how many lives it could save from cancer.
Smith hopes to raise this amount in this year's Race for Hope 5K run. Race for Hope is a charity run in downtown D.C. on May 5. Smith and thousands of others will participate in the run to raise money for brain cancer research.
Smith is captain of Team Pamela Sue, named for Pamela Sue Chaikin, who was an AU student for a portion of her undergraduate career while she was receiving treatment for brain cancer at Johns Hopkins University. She died at age 31, according to event co-founder and her father, Lionel Chaikin.
Race for Hope has raised almost $650,000 so far this year, according to the event's website. Team Pamela Sue has raised $21,000 so far, including $19,370 from Chaiken and also including donations from GEICO and other businesses, according to the team's website.
Smith hopes AU students will find time to come run and raise funds for research, he said.
"I know it's an awkward time, the Sunday before a lot of people have finals, but it really is a great cause,” Smith said.
