closer to free

Knowing his family history with cancer, Graig Diamond made the decision to get tested for BRCA and Lynch Syndrome.

“So, just two months shy of Maddie finishing treatment, we were excited she was going to be done, I was diagnosed with breast cancer,” Bouchard said.

When we met Maddie in the summer of 2022, she was a little girl with a big fight against leukemia.  They say the days are long, but the years are short. She’s 4 years old now and finished her chemo treatments in January. But, at the time, her mom, Hunter Bouchard, was preparing for a fight of her own. “So,…

Morgan Hushion and Jacqueline, or Jac, have been together at Yale New Haven Health’s Bridgeport Hospital for eight years. The pair work together as the two full-time speech pathologists on staff. There are three others that are part-time.

“I think of her very much as a mentor,” Morgan Hushion said of her coworker Jacqueline. “She really helped me over the years develop my practice in critical thinking. She is very much like my right hand at work.” Hushion and Jacqueline, or Jac, have been together at Yale New Haven Health’s Bridgeport Hospital for eight years. The pair...

Deborah Finco has cycled all over the country — and even outside of the country — but her battle with esophageal cancer, she says, will make her first Closer to Free ride right here in Connecticut so emotional.

Deborah Finco has cycled in several countries and several states, but it will be the first time she rides Closer to Free here at home on September 7. “There’s a lot of other charitable rides out there, but this one just hits close to the heart, because I had my surgery here, and my surgeon and team, you know, are…

Longtime Closer to Free rider and cancer survivor Jaime Krasnitski shared her story.

They met in high school and just two weeks later they went to prom. “We went on a blind date and that was it,” said Rebecca Klein. “Twenty seven years later, here we are.” Klein and her husband, Bobby, have been side-by-side for more than 20 years. And now, that’s how they’re getting through Bobby’s cancer treatment. They were...

When Emma Pfau walks into Yale New Haven Health’s Smilow Cancer Hospital, she says she feels both sadness and hope. That’s because Pfau’s father, Scott Walls, received cancer treatment there. He passed away in 2002. Walls worked as a physician’s assistant at what is now Yale New Haven Hospital’s Saint Raphael Campus. “He had an aggressive form of non-Hodgkin’s...

Katharine Mix will participate in her 10th Closer to Free Ride in September, but this year’s ride will be particularly close to her heart after her big cousin’s death earlier this year.

“He would eat it every meal of the day if he could.” Lobsters were the favorite food of Katharine Mix’s big cousin Andy. The two were only children who grew up like brother and sister. “I spent my whole life trying to keep up with him, be it skiing, running around. He was just a larger-than-life person and personality,”...

“It was pretty meaningful,” Vinny Celella said. “I would say it was top-notch,” Ralphie Celella added. That’s how Vinny and Ralphie Celella described Thursday’s Trike-A-Thon event, held outside Cheshire’s First Church Preschool. “The children were so excited,” First Church Preschool Director Brenda Ward-Kelley said. “I never thought they could ride around the church this many times.” On Thursday morning,...

A preschool in Cheshire played host for this unique and fun effort to raise money for Smilow Cancer Hospital.

Thousands of people came out on Saturday to participate in the 13th annual Closer to Free Ride.

More than 2,000 riders have turned out Saturday morning to participate in the 2023 Closer to Free Ride at the Yale Bowl in New Haven.

The 2023 Closer to Free Ride is in the books. The day was filled with lots of excitement and emotion for the annual fundraiser that benefits Smilow Cancer Hospital and the Yale Cancer Center. There was a lot of excitement on Saturday for the 13th annual Closer to Free Ride. “I take a little while to process things, I think…