Fueled By Passion, Running For Powerful Causes

If you drive around Westwood, you’ve likely seen Chris Hancock at one point or another. His signature tanned dome sets him apart and it’s not unusual for Chris to hear a chorus of car horns as he runs the streets.

“I get that all the time – Hey, I saw you on High Street,” said Chris. “And I have other people that look like me getting credit for being me.”

Anyone who may have been mistaken for Chris has a long way to go to match the impact he’s made advocating for The Boston House, an organization that resonates with the entire Hancock family.

“I was one of nine kids – we had eight boys and a girl,” said Chris about his early days in Brockton. “We were on food stamps. At the time, you don’t realize that there’s a stigma to food stamps. At the time, none of us cared. Now, I wear it like a badge of honor. You know, you were on food stamps when you grew up and now you live in Westwood.”

Early in his life, Chris and his family were dealt a huge blow, when the youngest Hancock, Paul, was diagnosed with leukemia.

“I’m getting choked up about it even now,” said Chris. “He was diagnosed when he was three. I was the only match for a bone marrow transplant, which was experimental back then. Unfortunately, he got too sick to go forward with the transplant. He died about six weeks after they said he couldn’t have the transplant.”

That intensely sad and monumental loss rocked the Hancock family, but invigorated Chris’ parents to make a difference. In 1979, Carol and Dave Hancock founded the original Ronald McDonald House in Boston, a home away from home for kids and their families who are undergoing treatment at Dana Farber.

“I think they charged 10 bucks a night for a family,” said Chris. “So instead of $2-300 a night at a hotel in Boston, the families would stay at the house. My parents were the founding members, on the Board of Directors, and my mother, to this day, still volunteers. She’s 84.”

This will be the 18th consecutive year Chris will run the Falmouth Road Race to benefit The Boston House. He’s always been an athlete, playing football and basketball in school, so fitness has been a major part of his existence dating back to the 80s. Philanthropy is a close second, and with each year, the numbers become more and more staggering.

“We’ve raised close to $200,000 over the course of time,” said Chris. “It started low, raising $3-4000 a year. At the time, I thought it was great. Last year, I raised $25,000, which was pretty amazing. I think everyone I know at this point knows this is what I do and they expect it. They expect me to come with a hand out and ask because they know it’s not for me. I just use the memory of my brother as motivation to say, screw it, I don’t care. I’m not going to feel like I’m groveling for someone to give money because it’s not going to my bank account. It’s going to a great place.”

As we wrapped up our chat, just for fun I asked Chris to rattle off the names of all the Hancock kids.

“Marty, Cindy, Teddy, Michael, John, Danny, Jimmy, Chris, Paul. Easy.”

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Meanwhile, across town, there’s another team preparing for the seven mile run through the rolling hills of Falmouth. Leading the way are Sarah Spinello and Katie Collins, a pair of Westwood moms who both brought children into the world prematurely. Dealing with an unexpected and unpredictable reality, Sarah found hope in connecting with Katie, who had previously experienced an early childbirth.

“We were at Il Massimo, it was the new hit place to go because it just recently opened,” said Katie. “We were in the back room and I had known Sarah through the Westwood Young Women’s Club, but we were never close. She was pregnant at the time. I had already had my daughter Willa and Willa was born at 34 weeks. I was in the antepartum floor for a while at Beth Israel and then afterwards, Willa went into the NICU. Sarah came to me during that meeting, basically saying she was headed to BI herself for monitoring.”

With her head spinning and unsure of what to expect in the days and weeks ahead, Sarah leaned on Katie for support.

“Going into it, it can be a very scary experience, not knowing,” said Katie. “A few weeks later, I ended up being admitted to BI at 26 ½ weeks and my first call was to Katie, saying, ‘What do I do? I have a toddler at home, I have this high-risk baby. I don’t know how to fill my time.’ I was spending all my days in and out of doctor’s appointments. Katie became a confidant and helped me through the whole process.”

That guiding presence opened Sarah’s eyes to Project Sweet Peas, an organization focused on helping families as they travel the path of premature delivery.

“I think it all comes back to grief and loss,” said Sarah. “Grief of a full-term pregnancy loss, of what you think might be a healthy child, uncertainty around the outcomes. I remember looking in the doctor’s eyes and asking, ‘What is going to happen?’ And they can’t predict, but they also have to be really honest with you about potential outcomes. Knowing that and sitting in that feeling is really a hard place to be.”

Exactly why the team at Project Sweet Peas becomes so vital. They’re familiar with the emotion and anxiety, able to provide comfort during the most uneasy days and nights.

“Their goal is to provide support to families who have experienced pregnancy loss and who have had NICU journeys,” said Sarah. “They do it in a variety of ways. They deliver little goodie bags around the holidays to show moms and families they’re caring for them, thinking of them. They provide some financial assistance to help with transportation, housing, gift cards, and they provide support in the form of memory boxes for families who have lost infants.”

When you’ve experienced such intensity, it’s easy to focus your effort on supporting a cause so personally significant. Both Katie and Sarah are runners, each with Boston Marathons to their credit, so engaging in a fund-raising campaign through the Falmouth Road Race is a natural way for them to give back to an organization that gave them, and others like them, so much. They’ve run for Beth Israel in the past, but this year the team is dedicated to Project Sweet Peas, hoping to raise more than the impressive $12,000 they finished with in 2022.

“Over the years as we’ve done different fundraising methods for all of our Falmouth Road Races, our biggest takeaway has been this – the support of the Westwood community is unflappable,” said Sarah. “We’ve had kids come out donating all of their lawnmowing money to us. We’ve had bake sales benefit the cause. People are just extremely generous. They know our kids and know our story and their support is invaluable.”

Both Sarah and Katie remain incredibly dedicated to supporting mothers and families going through the NICU experience. They regularly assemble goodie bags and deliver them to the antepartum unit at Beth Israel.

The Falmouth Road Race is scheduled for August 20 and the time to support Chris, Katie and Sarah is now. You can find their pages by visiting https://falmouthroadrace.com/get-involved/donate/ and searching for their names.

You can listen to listen to our full conversations by visiting the Westwood Living Podcast Network, available on SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher, Amazon and YouTube.