Police Chief and Family Walk for the Jimmy Fund

On Sept. 9, five residents from Northborough will walk miles along the historic route of the Boston Marathon in the 24th annual Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk.

Among them is Northborough's very own police chief, Mark Leahy, and his family.

Leahy and his family trekked the 13.1 mile walk, which starts at Babson College in Wellesley and ends at Copley Square in Boston, last year, and plan to do it again.

As co-Chairman of the Mass. Chiefs of Police Association’s Jimmy Fund Committee, Leahy also participates in the annual Jimmy Fund Golf Tournament at Juniper Hill as "Team Police Chiefs." 

"Our personal family motivation is for my wife’s dad, Nicola Fratamico, who died from liver cancer on 1990," said Leahy, "my brother-in-law (my sister’s husband) Jerry Fouche, who died from esophageal cancer in 2008 and our very dear friend (and former Southborough Police Chief) Billy Webber, who died from pancreatic cancer, also in 2008."

Leahy has also done the JF Walk for the past seven years, sometimes with family, and sometimes with others with patients and their families in a three-mile walk that runs from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Copley Square. The chiefs, in fact, participate in uniform. 

The Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk is the largest single-day participatory event benefiting the Jimmy Fund and Dana-Farber and has raised nearly $80 million since its inception in 1989 to conquer all forms of cancer. The Boston Athletic Association has supported the Boston Marathon Jimmy Fund Walk for the past 24 years.