Umphrey's McGee to perform at benefit concert

Standing just inside the Kroger on College Mall Road, graduate student Abby Cooley holds a purple Nalgene bottle covered with stickers that's beginning to fill up with assorted loose change and sets in for a long evening.\n"Hi, would you like to donate to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society?" she asks a woman whose shopping cart is piled high with groceries. "This is my least favorite fund-raiser," she says after the woman passes.\nCooley has committed herself to raise $3,000 for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society through the Team in Training program and will run in the Nike 26.2 mile Marathon for Women in San Francisco Oct. 24. With only about two weeks left before the marathon, Cooley is still $1,000 short of her goal, but full of confidence.\n"I'm going to make it," she said. "The generosity of the people here is amazing."\nAlong with canning at Kroger, hosting Tupperware and Pampered Chef parties and organizing Pizza Hut nights, Cooley has organized a benefit concert with the band Umphrey's McGee tonight at 8 p.m. at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater.\n"I just contacted the band like any fan," she said, "and we bounced e-mails back and forth until we came up with something."\nJoel Cummins, Umphrey's McGee keyboardist said now that the band is becoming more well known, it's gaining influence along with a fan base.\n"If there's someone we can help out through our music, we will," Cummins said.\nFor Cummins, tonight's concert is important because Cooley is a friend as well as a fan.\n"Abby's been a friend of mine since back in high school," he said. "We love to help out our friends. She's done a lot of good things."\nCooley said when she was an undergraduate at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, she participated in a variety of philanthropies with her sorority, Gamma Phi Beta, so when she got a flyer in the mail announcing a Team in Training meeting she decided to go check it out.\n"I decided it was the perfect thing at that time," Cooley said.\nAmy Zolman, a campaign coordinator for Team in Training, said participants raise money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society and then participate in one of a variety of endurance events, like Cooley's marathon in San Francisco.\n"It's the largest endurance program in the country," she said. "It gives participants the opportunity to be part of a team. We have professional coaches to help along the way."\nCooley said she has found the training program and its coaches incredibly helpful, since she has never run in a marathon before.\n"I've never done anything like this before," she said. "But I'm very comfortable. I'm in good shape."\nZolman said all of the money raised by Team In Training, about $500 million, goes toward research and patient aid in Indiana.\nCooley is running for patient honoree Karen Thomas, a 16-year-old from Lyons, Ind. \n"I have to run 20 miles tomorrow," Cooley said. "I think of her when I'm doing it. It puts a face with it."\nCummins said the show will be like any other concert for the band, which comes through Bloomington a few times a year.\n"If you haven't seen the band before," Cummins said, "come and have a great time dancing and be challenged by the cause."\nCummins said he is proud of his friend, both with the fund-raising and the marathon.\n"I'm excited to be helping her and helping others," he said. "I can't even tell you the last time I ran more than 10 miles."\n-- Contact senior writer Kathleen Quilligan at kquillig@indiana.edu.