Meet a Health Hero: John Matthews of Ride Hard, Breathe Easy

John Matthews knows a lot about lung cancer.

If you get the Cheltenham resident talking about it (which is not difficult to do), he’ll rattle off  alarming facts: Only one in five adults in the U.S. is screened for lung cancer; between 60 and 70 percent of patients are diagnosed when the disease has already reached stage four; and once it progresses that far, the odds of surviving past five years are only about five percent.

“Lung cancer is the number one cancer killer in the world,” he says.

Matthews is one of six siblings, and they got a crash course in the disease when their mom, Kathleen, was diagnosed in 2011. Kathleen had grown up on a farm in Ireland and learned early that “many hands make light work,” as Matthews recalls her saying. He and his siblings took that lesson to heart during her illness, escorting her to medical appointments, sitting with her during long hospitalizations, just being there.

Throughout the experience, the family learned just how brutal lung cancer can be — and how much stigma still surrounds the disease. Many people wrongly assume it affects only smokers, even though more than half of women diagnosed with the disease have never smoked; among men, 15 to 20 percent have never smoked, either.

“Anybody who has lungs can get lung cancer,” Matthews says simply.

His mother died just nine months after her diagnosis. A week before her death, Matthews promised her he would fight lung cancer in her honor.

That promise eventually became Ride Hard, Breathe Easy, the nonprofit Matthews founded in 2019 to support lung-cancer patients and their families. He set a goal: To raise $1 million to support lung cancer research, patients, and caregivers.

In 2025, the organization smashed through that goal, raising over $1.2 million. For his efforts, Matthews was a finalist last year in Be Well Philly’s Health Hero Challenge, which recognizes and honors those in our region who are committed to making a difference in people’s health and wellness.

Nominations are open for the 2026 awards. Submit someone today!

For Matthews, getting there was a ride in itself.

Though his mother’s death galvanized him to fight lung cancer on behalf of others, he wasn’t sure what form his efforts should take. So he started small, organizing his family to run charity 5Ks — they called themselves “Kathleen’s Crew” — and attend conferences, both as a participant and speaker.

But the efforts felt too small. Matthews wanted to make a bigger impact and bring greater attention to the challenges lung cancer patients and families face. He started talking with his wife about raising $1 million for the cause.

“She looked at me and was like, ‘We’ve raised $60,000. You’re 55 years old! What are you thinking?’ ” he recalls.

In 2017, the big idea came to him: He’d bike cross-country to both raise awareness of the challenges lung cancer patients face and to raise money, through sponsors, for organizations researching the disease. It was an ambitious goal. He was fit, yes, but he’d never been much of a cyclist. So he consulted with others who’d biked cross-country and began “riding himself into shape,” doing training runs that totaled 200 miles per week.

When the day came to hit the road, he kicked off the journey with family and friends, who cycled alongside him for the first five days. Periodically, others would join him, but mostly it was just him and a support van, which followed along the route to keep him safe and offer help if he needed to stop for water or rest. His brother joined him in Colorado for a three-day stretch. And when he finally made it across the Golden Gate bridge, his wife, son and siblings were there to cheer him at the finish line.

It had taken him 52 days.

“Some days were easier, some days it rained,” he says. As he crossed the bridge, “it was such a welcome sight to see someone you love.”

During his journey, he was overwhelmed by the curiosity and generosity of strangers he met along the way. Many stopped to ask why he was riding, then donated money or offered to buy him dinner.

“I got to see the kindness of people across the country,” Matthews says. “So often, you hear about how divided the country is, and I’ll tell you — we’re not.”

Matthews donated the funds raised during that first ride to unaffiliated nonprofits, many of which focus on lung cancer research. But he wanted to help patients directly, so he launched Ride Hard, Breathe Easy in 2019.

The organization focuses on raising money to directly support families dealing with lung cancer, partnering with Fox Chase Cancer Center, Temple, Penn, Jefferson, MD Anderson at Cooper, Duke, Dartmouth and Johns Hopkins to put dollars right into the hands of patients.

“The direct patient impact of providing financial relief through transportation to and from the hospitals, meal vouchers, mortgage payments — that’s really the bulk of our work,” says Bella Crane,  a Ride Hard, Breathe Easy board member.

She joined the organization after her mother, Isabella Delahoussaye, died in 2023 after a six-year battle with stage-four lung cancer. Delahoussaye herself had served on the nonprofit’s board.

“My family is very lucky to have had the resources to afford not onl my mom’s treatment but the lifestyle implications of it,” Crane says. “I don’t think people comprehend how much behind-the-scenes work goes into treatment: It’s hospital visits multiple times a week, whether that hospital is two hours away or 45 minutes away. Then it’s aftercare. It’s being sick from chemo. It’s not being able to work typical hours. It’s needing care from your family and from your friends — all of that is just a tremendous burden on patients.”

Since 2022, Ride Hard, Breathe Easy has given $50,000 Innovation Award grants to partner hospitals to support work that helps lung cancer patients, in addition to direct, monetary relief the nonprofit gives families. Winners have used the funds to increase lung-cancer screening opportunities, create a registry of DNA from lung cancer patients who have never smoked, test promising new pharmaceutical treatments, and more.

The organization has also expanded their fundraising events, which now include the Ride Hard, Breathe Easy Classic, where folks bike from one partner hospital to another; a home ride event; a golf tournament (held this year on June 8th at Five Ponds in Warminster); and a gala.

Matthews is now retired from a 30-year career in tech and, aside from teaching one course at Temple, is 100 percent focused on Ride Hard, Breathe Easy. He’s still moved by the stories he hears from patients, like that of a grandmother who wanted a wig because she was worried her young grandchildren wouldn’t recognize her — or would be frightened by her appearance— when she lost her hair to chemo.

“We’re there to help,” Matthews says. “Several years ago, we had a Temple patient say, ‘You saved my life by providing me with a way to my appointment.’ A doctor at Duke said, ‘My patient and their family would have been thrown out of their apartment if they didn’t have this funding.’”

So, he says, it was an honor last year when he learned he’d been nominated for Be Well Philly’s Health Hero Challenge and then selected as a finalist.

“This idea doesn’t go very far without many other people diving in,” Matthews says. “My wife, friends, and family have been extremely dedicated to making this work – and people I’ve never met before have jumped in. To be recognized by Philadelphia magazine and Independence Blue Cross enhances the credibility to a small but growing nonprofit like us.”

Matthews’s new goal for Ride Hard, Breathe Easy is audacious: to raise $1 million each year, with more than 92 percent of each dollar going directly to supporting patients and research.

“I’ve met some of the most dedicated, remarkable people in my life through this community,” Matthews says. “I want to see us continue to grow and help more people.”

John Matthews was one of the finalists in the 2025 Be Well Philly Health Hero Challenge, presented by Independence Blue Cross. The award recognizes the nonprofit leaders, medical professionals, frontline health workers, nonprofit leaders, teachers, coaches, entrepreneurs, and community activists who are making a positive impact on health and wellness through caregiving in our community.

Each year, the public nominates the Health Heroes who inspire them the most and vote to select a winner who receives a $15,000 donation to the charity of their choice. Two runners-up each receive a $2,500 donation to the charity of their choice. You can nominate (or nominate yourself!) a 2026 Health Hero here.