Hey there! I want to share the tale of how it evolved that I am running the Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) as a member of Team Lemon and In Honor Of Andrea and "the children". Originally I was planning on running the Hartford Marathon but when I found out that it was the same weekend as our St. Luke Taste of Greece I decided it would be too much with 3 straight days of Greek Dancing...OPA! So, I started looking for another fall marathon to run and found out the MCM was the following weekend, when I was going to be in Washington anyways for the wedding of a very special friend (<3 Jennifer). Hmmm, sounds like a plan! But, when I went to register I found out it had been sold out via lottery for months and the only way to register was through one of their Charity Partners. On July 4th I was talking with a friend (another Kathy who is from Washington, has run it, volunteers for it and has been an inspiration to my running in the past) and she encouraged me to consider running for one of the charities. My cousin Andrea, who has been battling cancer for years, was there and I asked her... "if I choose to run for a cancer charity what would you want it to contribute to"... and she immediately replied..."the children, anything for the children ~ it was always so hard when I would be at my treatment and the little children and their families came in". So, we found a couple of MCM Charity Partners that benefited children that I planned to research further. Then it came to decision time...making the commitment to GO For It! My thoughts over the next few days went back and forth, with my challenges outweighing the reasons to go for it ... Is it logistically feasible? Can I spend that extra $ when traveling to the wedding is already an expensive undertaking? Do I really want to get up so early, after being out so late, to run for 5 hours? (The wedding is Saturday night and the marathon is Sunday morning). Do I really want to give up a higher level of "partying" to do so? Can I really spend the time between now and then on training and organizing my fundraising efforts? Then I began the exploration of the charities we had discovered, starting with Alex's Lemonade Stand Foundation https://www.alexslemonade.org/... On that website I found the Original Alex Scott Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6d2QOmQOP4U and minutes later was sobbing. Decision made! I am going to do this, one way or another. My "challenges" paled dramatically in comparison to the extreme determination that little Alex exhibited in her very short life. It's very cool that one of my favorite expressions, and attitudes toward life, has always been "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade". This was all meant to be... especially the connection with Andrea that makes it soooo much more meaningful. To have learned how hard it was for her to see the children when she was going for her own treatments, during visits that I'm sure were already so difficult...heartwrenching. Thus, the dedication to Andrea and the children...

I hope that you will be as inspired as I was when you look into this wonderful organization and that you will join me in supporting the work that they do. I thank you in advance for any donation that you are able to contribute. Love, Kathy