Cranston police Sgt. Karen Guilbeault holds up Jack Brown during a ceremony at the State House yesterday after bicyclists arrived in Providence from a three-day trip that raised money for Jack’s cancer treatment.

The Providence Journal / Andrew Dickerman

PROVIDENCE — Strapped to the back of his mother’s London Metropolitan Police bicycle, Jack Brown rode into Providence yesterday afternoon in a pack of some 40 Providence, Cranston, New York City and London police officers raising money for his medical treatment.

The trip had taken three days — 28½ hours of bicycling, mostly along Route 1, interrupted by a few stops for rest and medical treatment. Paul Nicholls, an Englishman who in 2004 founded Team Continuum, a New York-based cancer support group that sponsored the event, suffers from multiple myeloma.

Jack, a 6-year-old English boy, was diagnosed on March 17, 2005, with neuroblastoma, a rare cancer of the sympathetic nervous system that often develops in young children and accounts for half of all malignancies in infants.

Last December, Jack suffered a relapse. When his doctors judged his condition irreversable, the family looked to the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, in New York City, for help.

Medical bills already exceed $1 million and keep mounting, said his mother, Yvonne Brown.

The ride that reached Providence yesterday raised $150,000 for Jack’s cause. More is needed.

All told, the organization has generated $750,000 in donations for Jack, but over time, contributions are dwindling, said Yvonne Brown.

The group next plans to run the New York City marathon, on Nov. 4.

The growing group of Jack’s helpers was brought together almost by accident.

Metropolitan Police Constable Mark Edwards learned of Jack’s plight through the department intranet — both Yvonne and Richard Brown work as detective sergeants with the Metropolitan police.

Edwards didn’t know the Browns, but as the father of two young children he was touched.

He first met the Browns a year ago, when he came to the States to run in the New York City marathon. Jack’s parents asked him to purchase some medicine for Jack. In this country, Edwards said, that medicine was cheaper. It cost 1,000 pounds, just over $2,000.

In December, after Jack’s relapse, his parents took him to Sloan-Kettering. It was just before Christmas. The family, with no place to stay in this country, had to split up, leaving Jack’s older siblings, brother Connor, 11, and sister Rhian, 7, back home.

That’s when Nicholls’ team stepped in. Team Continuum found the Browns a place to stay, set up a Christmas tree and decorations and flew in Connor and Rhian, making sure the family would celebrate Christmas together.

“What they thought was going to be a nonevent turned out to be the best Christmas ever,” Nicholls said.

That’s what Team Continuum is all about, he said. “We put the ‘can’ into cancer,” he said.

Richard, Connor and Rhian have since returned to the U.K. Yvonne has stayed with Jack. But with his health showing improvement, Yvonne said she is hoping the two will be able to travel back home this fall. The trip, however, will only be temporary. Jack, she said, still needs to complete one more year of treatment.

Completing that treatment, she said, would increase his chances of beating the cancer, but whether he’ll get to complete the treatment will depend on the money raised. Yesterday, Yvonne Brown thanked all the officers and donors.

Fighting back tears, Brown said the experience had been “very, very humbling,” and asked people to help, a dollar at a time, children like her son.

Tears had been shed along the way, she said, but in the end, they were tears of happiness.

Standing by her was Cranston police Sgt. Karen Guilbeault, who had befriended Constable Edwards years ago during a trip to London and had helped him organize the event this year.

Edwards got BMW America to loan them a vehicle on which they put the Metropolitan police decals. The car was part of the motorcade that accompanied the bicycles.

Guilbeault and Providence police Detective Robert Firth planned the route.

Guilbeault has befriended the Browns as well.

They are now family, Guilbeault and Yvonne Brown said yesterday as they comforted each other.

marmenta@projo.com