For Sharon Fiedler Shimanovsky, asking for friends’ help was the easy part. She already was contending with the difficulties of cancer and its treatment.

Scant months after receiving a breast cancer diagnosis while pregnant with her second child, Shimanovsky signed up for the 2008 Los Angeles Walk for Hope to Cure Breast Cancer. In the midst of her own cancer battle, she decided to help others by raising funds for City of Hope’s breast cancer research, treatment and education programs.

Sharon Fiedler Shimanovsky with her son Baron (Photo courtesy Sharon Fiedler Shimanovsky)

“I think that raising money for research is the best thing that I can do,” said Shimanovsky, a real estate agent and former lawyer who lives in Los Angeles. “There’s a certain amount of self-interest, but I also want to spare other women from facing cancer.”

Volunteers like Shimanovsky can contribute powerfully to efforts to combat the disease. Thanks to her single, heartfelt e-mail that landed in the in-boxes of friends and colleagues, she would become the top fundraiser across nine nationwide Walk events. And she will return again for this year’s Los Angeles Walk for Hope, nationally presented by Staples, to be held Oct. 25 at the City of Hope campus in Duarte, Calif.

Shimanovsky, whose mother survived breast cancer diagnosed at a young age, joined the 2008 Walk with seemingly little opportunity to raise funds. Her treatment, her career and caring for her young son, Miles, all demanded her time. With only weeks to go until the event, she sent out a message to everyone she knew.

“‘I’m doing this walk that could hopefully save my life,’” Shimanovsky recalled writing. “And I said that although science has made great strides, my treatment was not that different than my mom’s 25 years ago. So we need more research.”

The results astounded her.

An hour after the e-mail went out, her total shot to $1,000. Friends she had not seen since college joined her team, the Bald and the Bellyful. As recipients forwarded her appeal, online gifts came in from people she had never met. She ultimately brought in more than $20,000 for City of Hope’s efforts to eradicate breast cancer.

Now, Shimanovsky is planning her 2009 Walk for Hope drive. She will dispatch another e-mail blast, but she also will make follow-up phone calls, recruit more teammates and seek corporate matching gifts.

“It’s important to raise funds because this is what’s going to save people’s lives and mean that down the road other women won’t have to suffer. Without research and new treatments, nothing is going to change,” she said.

Meanwhile, her family has grown and her personal fight against cancer continues.

In February, her second son, Baron, was born, perfectly healthy.

The proud mother continues treatment through Tower Cancer Foundation, a medical center in Beverly Hills, Calif., that partners with City of Hope for clinical trials. Although Shimanovsky has what doctors call triple-negative breast cancer — a particularly aggressive and hard-to-treat form of the disease — she tackles this challenge with the same can-do attitude that characterizes her approach to life.