Coming into its 17th year, the Dempsey Challenge is set to kick off Saturday, Sept. 20, and participants are gearing up for the challenge as modified and new routes are unveiled, such as the gravel bicycle route.
Though it is only DeeAnn Leck’s second year fundraising for the Dempsey Challenge, her Team Cure MM has already raised more than $20,000. The event is more than just a physical challenge, it is a chance to gather with people who have been touched by cancer, one way or another, in a positive atmosphere, she said.
“I don’t know how to explain it, except, like, your happiness meter is overflowing,” she said. “Like, my heart is so full being there because everybody’s just so kind and supportive.”
Leck knows firsthand the positive impact Dempsey Center services have on people battling cancer and their family members.
Her mother-in-law reached out to the Dempsey Center after Leck was diagnosed with a type of blood cancer at age 34 in 2024. The counseling and group sessions alone helped her through treatments that left her with little energy.
Calling it a “dark” time, Leck said the Dempsey Center services helped pull her out of that.
“You go to the doctors, they do what they do, but there’s nothing for your mind and your soul and your spirit, which is just as important when you’re facing a (cancer) diagnosis,” she said. “So having (the Dempsey Center) to turn to, they were absolutely, like, a light of hope, a beacon of hope in such a dark, upside-down time.”
Chris Zuma travels to Lewiston every year from Goffstown, New Hampshire, for the Dempsey Challenge. She first attended in 2019 with a neighbor who is from Lewiston. So far she has raised just over $1,000 this year and usually raises about that much every year, she said.
When she started running in 2019 the Dempsey Challenge gave her an opportunity to challenge herself while also participating in a good cause, she said.
“It’s really one of those charities that the money you raise isn’t going to a CEO, it isn’t going to, you know, some fluff,” she said. “It’s going directly to support the people who need it.”
Like many others, she too was touched by cancer when her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer when Zuma was 11, she said. She had to grow up fast, helping to take care of her younger sister so her dad could continue working and her mother could recover from treatments.
Her mother is now a two-time cancer survivor and attends the event with her, even getting to meet Patrick Dempsey one year, she said. She likes the fact that money raised at the Dempsey Challenge directly supports Dempsey Center clients.
Money raised through the Dempsey Challenge, founded in 2009, goes directly to providing services for Dempsey Center clients.
The Dempsey Center was founded by actor Patrick Dempsey, a native of Buckfield, after his mother’s cancer diagnosis. It provides services to people with cancer, such as nutrition support, movement and fitness classes, counseling and support groups, massage, acupuncture, Reiki, along with other wellness services. It is all at no cost to its clients.
Last year 2,300 people made nearly 20,000 visits to the Dempsey Center, according to Communications Director Katelynn Davis. More than 2,100 of those clients lived in Maine.
Most challenge routes this year have been changed, except for Wendy’s Way and the 25-mile bicycle route, which have only minor changes, she said. Routes have been shifted to the south more, where there is less traffic on Dempsey Challenge day, to hopefully making them safer.
