In 2013, Alison Krawczyk, 23 years old at the time, lost her mother to colon cancer and a grandmother to breast cancer. Six years later, Krawczyk, as the recently appointed assistant director of philanthropy communications at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, is in a position to honor her late relatives’ lives while helping Dana-Farber’s patients and caregivers.

Krawczyk, who calls the Dorchester-South Boston borderline home, accepted the job last May, seeing it, she says today, “as a really wonderful opportunity to work at one of the most prestigious cancer centers in the nation – in the world. And kind of give back using my skills in a way that I hadn’t been able to do before.”

Her day job isn’t the only way she is working to give back: While Krawczyk doesn’t consider herself a long-distance runner, she has joined the Dana-Farber team that is running in the Boston Athletic Association’s Half Marathon this month.

The race, scheduled for Sun., Oct. 13, will snake its way through Boston’s Emerald Necklace park system in Dorchester and Jamaica Plain for 13.1 miles. Krawczyk has found that training for the run was more intimidating than anything else. She leaned on one of her friends for advice on how to prepare to compete.

It was a different story on the fundraising side. Her friends and family were quick to respond to emails and posts on social media to make sure she quickly reached her goal of raising $1,500. As of last Monday, she and the nine other runners on the Dana-Farber team had raised some $8,250 toward their goal of $10,000. For more information, and how to donate, go to danafarber.jimmyfund.org.

“This was my first experience, but it’s been great so far,” Krawczyk said. “The Dana-Farber running team has made it really easy to fundraise and train, so anybody who doesn’t consider themselves a runner but has thought about maybe participating in this kind of event, I definitely encourage them to get involved in any way they can.”