{"id":227998,"date":"2026-04-11T22:50:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-11T22:50:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/227998\/"},"modified":"2026-04-11T22:50:06","modified_gmt":"2026-04-11T22:50:06","slug":"fight-for-air-climb-raises-funds-for-lung-disease","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/227998\/","title":{"rendered":"Fight for Air Climb raises funds for lung disease"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 On Saturday, hundreds of people climbed to the top of the Bank of America building in Tampa for a good cause.<\/p>\n<p>The American Lung Association\u2019s Fight for Air Climb raised funds and awareness for lung disease.<\/p>\n<p>What You Need To Know<\/p>\n<p>The American Lung Association\u2019s Fight for Air Climb returned to Tampa on Saturday<br \/>\n<br \/>More than 700 people climbed the Bank of America building<br \/>\n<br \/>Climbers went up 42 floors and more than 900 steps<br \/>\n<br \/>All funds raised will go toward\u00a0programs that support the 2.8 million Floridians living with lung disease<\/p>\n<p>According to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lung.org\/research\/state-of-lung-cancer\/key-findings\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">American Lung Association<\/a>, someone in the U.S. is diagnosed with lung cancer every two minutes.<\/p>\n<p>About 700 people, including firefighters, made their way to the top floor of one of Tampa\u2019s tallest buildings.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo better thing than doing this, because if you can\u2019t breathe, nothing else matters,\u201d said climber Bobby Paolini.<\/p>\n<p>Paolini\u00a0works in immunodiagnostics and talks to health care providers about their patients\u2019 allergies and breathing sensitivities. That\u2019s why he\u2019s back at this fundraiser for\u00a0a\u00a0third\u00a0straight\u00a0year.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI just know what it looks like on the side of those who are struggling, who are in need, whether it be for research, for treatment and it hits home in that way,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>This <a href=\"https:\/\/action.lung.org\/site\/TR?fr_id=28308&amp;pg=entry\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">climb raised\u00a0more than\u00a0$220,000<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Rob Hamilton, who is on the local board of directors for the American Lung Association, said the funds will go toward programs that support the 2.8 million Floridians living with lung disease.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe money that we\u2019re raising as a part of this awareness and this climb will be used in research that will hopefully ultimately allow us to cure this uncured disease,\u201d said Rob Hamilton, a local board member for the American Lung Association.<\/p>\n<p>After 42 floors and more than 900 steps, Paolini completed the Fight for Air Climb, so others can have\u00a0a\u00a0future with\u00a0fewer\u00a0lung complications<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe more stories I hear&#8230; the more I\u2019m just motivated to do this and proud to do it,\u201d Paolini said.<\/p>\n<p>The Fight for Air Climb event is hosted in 40 cities across the country and has seen about 20,000 participants in\u00a0the more than 35-year history of the event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2014 On Saturday, hundreds of people climbed to the top of the Bank of America building&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227999,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3948,6466,571,6075,276,115,135,137,136,1374],"class_list":["post-227998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-app-health","tag-app-latest-health-stories","tag-health","tag-health-and-medicine","tag-hillsborough-county","tag-news","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news","tag-tyler-oneill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=227998"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227998\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}