Today I participated in another walk for charity and just wanted to share some of my photos from the event with my readers. Besides, it’s Saturday and I’m (mostly) not in a political mood.
I took both of the above photos prior to the race getting started. It’s worthy of note that they ran low on runner numbers so as a walker I didn’t take one. I’ll tell you how I did after the next group of pictures.
I actually knew my time when I finished, I walked the 5K in 40:58. It was a bit disappointing because I thought I could put up a sub-40 time but when I needed that extra gear in the last half-mile it wasn’t there. I thought I was doing a pretty good pace because I was 26:13 at two miles. Oh well, maybe next time.
And while I have the 5K race winners in the second photo down from here, the real winner is in the next photo.
Both winners are interesting in their own right – Nick Loffer is a contributor to the Salisbury News blog and a member of the Lower Shore YR’s, while Josie Brown was seriously injured in a pedestrian accident a couple years back and told she’d never run again. I guess that doctor was proven wrong.
The next picture is called foreshadowing an upcoming post:
To close, I want to make a few observations.
Through no fault of their own, the Mull family faced a serious dilemma because their son Christopher was diagnosed with a condition called Dravet Syndrome – actually to them it was a relief to finally have a name for what was wrong with their son. While I don’t know the Mulls personally I would wager that the stress level in their home between having two older boys who weren’t even in school yet and another child born during the long quest for a diagnosis for Christopher was nearly unbearable. And then to find out that securing an assistance animal to help Christopher would run about $11,000? Most families would have given up or looked to public avenues for assistance.
Instead, the Mulls rolled up their sleeves, enlisted an army of volunteers and sponsors to help with the effort, and with all their help put together an event that not only raised the $11,000…oh no, prior to today’s 100 or so race entries (at $30 apiece) they were at $26,000. Because of the generosity of one small city – Salisbury, Maryland, my adopted hometown – this troubled child who’s had some of the innocent joy of being a toddler robbed by a disease few have heard of, much less understood, not only will courageous Christopher be able to get his assistance dog later this fall but another deserving family or two can be helped as well.
To me, this proves that misfortune doesn’t necessarily need to be addressed by a government program. For all I know the Mulls may be on the complete opposite side of the political spectrum as I, but hopefully this effort can be a lesson to everyone who reads this post. Remember, there’s an entrepreneur who saw a need for assistance dogs for those who suffer from epilepsy-related conditions and went into the business to help. It’s not a government program, providing and training these dogs is someone’s livelihood.
And is this not what America is truly about?
I came across this blog while I was looking for race results for the Christophers Run/Walk 5k, W. for
Diabetes, Bridgewater, MA 5/26/2008. My husband Jim and our daughter, Tanya ran in it. I read most of this blog and just want to send along best wishes, hope and a prayer and hope for the same for ourselves. You see, one year ago today, Tanya was rushed to Childrens Hospital Boston and diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. She also has a serious Thyroid condition and the stress and financial hardship have been so huge. Now it seems to get worse, her doctor did a test for what is Celiac Disease. I’ve spent hours online finding out everything I can and have felt pretty discouraged. She is such a terrific kid and even offered to try to babysit to try to help with some of the bills! Everyone that has met her, loves her and that helps alot. So, I hope it helps to know that people send their best wishes even when things seem toughest.