South Bay artist displays life-size custom artwork at the award-winning outdoor stationary cycling fundraiser to honor loved ones and friends in the fight against cancer

In the battle against cancer, it takes love and the dedication of community to make a difference. South Bay artist Wendy Stillman is showing her support by creating the custom-design mixed media painting, “Love Rides” which will be on display at the 12th Annual Tour de Pier outdoor stationary cycling fundraiser on Sunday, May 19 at the Manhattan Beach Pier & Strand.

Masterfully using acrylic on canvas, Stillman’s artwork is a large, vibrant 7.5 feet by 7.5 feet painting featuring healing heart hands surrounded by symbols of support. “As a local artist and longtime resident here in the South Bay, I was thrilled to have the opportunity to create a large custom piece of art for the Tour de Pier,” said Stillman. “These hand hearts represent all the love people are expressing by participating in this event and riding at the Tour de Pier to honor loved ones, friends, and the fight against cancer.” She added, “I wanted to create a large, strong piece both physically and visually to symbolize the power we have collectively to stand together as a community to fight the fight, and what better way to symbolize that than two hands coming together to symbolize love.”

Since the launch of the Tour de Pier more than a decade ago, the hand heart gesture has been incorporated into rides as a symbol of love and hope for those fighting cancer. This year, the Tour de Pier is honored that Stillman will be sharing her incredible art with the community. “Our goal this year is to weave the healing power of art into the Tour de Pier. Over the years, the hand heart has been a unifying gesture of love and support between our instructors and the participants,” said Heath Gregory, Co-Founder of the Tour de Pier. “We wanted to embrace hand heart fully and extend the sentiment into the greater community with Wendy’s help and talent. Her piece, ‘Love Rides’ is a symbol of the love we have for our greater South Bay community and a message of love and hope to those fighting cancer.”

Broadening community engagement, the Tour de Pier shared the “Love Rides” collaboration with the youth arts program of Indivisible Arts at Resin in Hermosa Beach, a nonprofit organization dedicated to cultivating creativity, consciousness, and connection through the arts. Stillman created a project for kids to create smaller 8-inch by 8-inch versions of the hand heart painting so they could participate in the community’s effort to show support for all those fighting against cancer. Artwork of students from Indivisible Arts will be showcased, along with Stillman’s painting, at the Tour de Pier.

The hand heart design will continue to have prominent presence at the Tour de Pier as it will appear on the front of this year’s exclusively designed t-shirts worn by participants and volunteers. Hosted by Splatterz Studio, kids and adults can craft their own hand heart design (for a suggested donation) at the Health & Fitness Expo which is free and open to the public.

To catch a sneak peek of Stillman’s painting in the weeks leading up to the Tour de Pier, visit Culture Brewing Co. in Manhattan Beach and the Bay Club in El Segundo.

The Tour de Pier will be held at the iconic Manhattan Beach Pier & Strand, 2 Manhattan Beach Blvd., Manhattan Beach, CA 90266 from 8:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. The fundraiser benefits a trio of nonprofit cancer organizations that work tirelessly to advance research and provide multi-layer support services: Hirshberg Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research, Cancer Support Community South Bay, and the Uncle Kory Foundation for Brain Cancer Research.  To learn more about “Love Rides” and the Tour de Pier, visit www.tourdepier.com.

Each year, thanks to the fundraising efforts of the Tour de Pier community, our three cancer charities are able to provide crucial support for patients and fund groundbreaking research. As we gear up for an epic 2024 ride, we want to look back at 2023 and highlight the progress each charity was able to make because of your fundraising and generosity. We can’t wait to see what we can accomplish together in 2024!

The Hirshberg Foundation

In 2023, the Hirshberg Foundation was able to fund 8 new individual & collaborative Seed Grants, collectively awarding 120 projects to date. The Seed Grant program continues to produce results and past Seed Grant recipients presented at conferences around the globe in 2023. As a long-time sponsor of the American Pancreatic Association (APA) Meeting, their 2023 opening symposium addressed the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in diagnosing, treating and advancing pancreatic cancer research. At the end of last year, the Agi Hirshberg UCLA Center for Pancreatic Diseases moved to a beautiful new space on the UCLA campus that offers patients and loved ones world-class integrative care in one convenient location.

Through direct patient interactions, in 2023 the Hirshberg Foundation provided invaluable support services to over 200 newly diagnosed patients and their families. Their Patient & Family Webinars and Symposium videos help pancreatic cancer patients & caregivers learn from top medical professionals, share their stories and connect with one another. The Hirshberg Foundation is proud to partner with the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) to develop extensive guidelines on care options, treatment protocols, and expert recommendations, all made available in their latest Guidelines book.

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The Uncle Kory Foundation

In 2023, the Uncle Kory Foundation (UKF) funded $200,000 to their brain cancer Seed Grant Program, $150,000 in Collaborative Grants and $100,000 in second year Renewal Seed Grants. They also contributed $100,000 to a program that is near and dear to the Tour de Pier community and the South Bay, the Fight Like the Averys Grant (FLAG) which supports pediatric brain cancer research programs. UKF was also able to provide $10,000 in Medical Student Grants at UCLA and Duke University.

Thanks to the support from the Tour de Pier, as of January 2024, UKF has awarded $3,650,000 in grants to 61 projects focused on finding better treatments for adult and pediatric brain cancer. UKF research grants have led to over $2.2 million in additional funding from the National Institute of Health and other funding opportunities. Together, we have brain cancer surrounded.

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Cancer Support Community Redondo Beach

CSC South Bay provides hope, education, and support to cancer patients, survivors, and their loved ones completely free of charge. CSC South Bay offers 200 programs per month (both in-person and virtually) which include support groups led by licensed mental health professionals, healthy lifestyle classes, educational workshops, counseling, and Kids Community programs.

In 2023, thanks in part to the support from the Tour de Pier, CSC South Bay served 1,950 individuals through 755 support groups. Their 572 Healthy Lifestyle Classes include restorative yoga, Tai Chi, meditation, sound bowl healing, and walking groups to provide healing and emotional wellness. 130 educational workshops covered topics from nutrition to relaxation techniques to caregiver support. They provided 464 no-cost counseling sessions and 2023 saw an expansion to 364 new participants and an 80% increase in Kids Community attendance. CSC South Bay was recognized for their great work with the 2023 Daily Breeze Award for the Southbay’s Best Nonprofit Organization.

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It is thanks to you that our three charities have been able to continue their important work. Our research and patient programs are made possible because of your participation, fundraising and generosity. We look forward to seeing you at the 2024 Tour de Pier – let’s continue to make a difference for our cancer community!

The Tour de Pier, the Hirshberg Foundation’s signature, collaborative spin event, brings together 3 great charities to fundraise for cancer. 2020 looked a whole lot different than we expected but our Tour de Pier spirit didn’t stop. While we couldn’t ride together in person, we never gave up in the fight to cure cancer!

Thanks to your support, the three Tour de Pier charities continued to provide crucial support for patients and fund groundbreaking research. As we get ready for Tour de Pier 2021, let’s take a moment to celebrate all we have been able to do in 2020 thanks to your support. Our programs and research are made possible because of your fundraising and generosity. We can’t wait to see what we can accomplish together in 2021!

The Hirshberg Foundation

In 2020 the Hirshberg Foundation made great strides in research while providing new ways for us to support our patients and their families.

In May, we received the great news that our UCLA research team was awarded $5.75 million from the NIH to work on three collaborative projects to study the role of obesity & inflammation in pancreatic cancer. In November, we announced a first-of-its-kind collaborative Seed Grant to investigate how inflammation from chronic pancreatitis promotes tumor growth. We are optimistic that the future holds great strides for advancing early detection, prevention, and treatment options for pancreatic cancer!

As soon as we realized gathering in person was not an option, we found knew new ways (hello Zoom!) to deliver patient and family support. Our Patient & Family Webinars, a new monthly series that began last April, provides a space for pancreatic cancer patients & caregivers to learn from top medical professionals, share their stories and connect with one another. We have over a dozen amazing videos in our resource library and continue to host new webinars each month.

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The Uncle Kory Foundation

Thanks to the support from the Tour de Pier, the Uncle Kory Foundation was able to maintain its commitment to funding research to progress the understanding and treatment of brain tumors. We continued our research at UCLA with Timothy Cloughesy, M.D and David Nathanson, Ph.D., making significant progress with their project to develop therapeutic approaches for glioblastoma (GBM), known for its resistance to chemotherapy and radiation. This and previous seed funds from UKF, has led to the development of a potent, brain penetrant drug that fights the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR). A new drug has now been licensed by a leading biotech company and is included in an Investigational New Drug application path for first-in-human trials beginning in late 2021/early 2022.

We were also able to maintain our funding for our yearly Seed Grant Program, where we were able to fund 4 new researchers and renewed a 2nd year grant for a 2019 awardee. In 2019, we began funding the work of Dr. Vidya Gopalakrishnan and her research team at MD Anderson who study the origins of pediatric brain tumors. The focus of their current research is a lethal brain tumor called diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), for which there is no cure. Her team has identified how the H3K27M mutation, seen in 80% of DIPG tumors, causes uncontrollable cell growth. They are currently working to pinpoint clinically relevant drugs to which DIPG tumors harboring the H3K27M mutation are uniquely sensitive. The data generated during the coming year is expected to facilitate the initiation of a clinical trial and hopefully, change the standard of care for this terrible disease.

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Cancer Support Community Redondo Beach

In March of 2020, CSCRB moved all support groups, workshops and wellness classes to an online platform (Zoom again!). Cancer is a difficult disease under the best of circumstances and our services have been more needed throughout this pandemic than ever. Our cancer patients and their families are under extreme stress with heightened anxiety about being immunocompromised, having rescheduled cancer appointments, fearful for exposure during cancer treatments and being at high risk for COVID, all in addition to the normal stressors of a cancer diagnosis. The group therapy and healthy lifestyle classes provided by CSCRB are invaluable to helping reduce cancer participant’s anxiety and stress during this uncertain and devastating time to be dealing with cancer.

Your generous support has allowed our virtual programs to provide hope, healing and comfort to cancer patients and their loved ones. We helped 1,228 cancer participants with over 15,500 online visits consisting of 1,578 healthy lifestyle classes, 807 individual counseling sessions, and 105 educational workshops all for free. Cancer does not stop during a pandemic and in 2020 we welcomed 443 newly diagnosed individuals to our community without ever having stepped foot in our center. This is a huge change after 34 years of providing 100% in-person services. No matter how we interact with patients and families, thanks to your support, we are dedicated to ensuring no one faces this disease alone.

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It is thanks to you that our three charities have been able to continue their important work. Our research and patient programs are made possible because of your participation, fundraising and generosity. We are busy planning for both an in-person and virtual Tour de Pier 2021 – we hope you’ll join us!