this is our why | werun22q

Today is February 12, which means that in 86 days, #werun22q will be toeing the line of the Ragnar Cape Cod road race! As we’ve updated on Facebook, this year #werun22q is proud to field TWO teams of runners – that’s 24 people dedicated to running for our community, raising funds, and spreading awareness!

It’s been an adventure here; as a team, we’ve been brainstorming about a way to raise funds that would help as many people in the 22q community as possible! Just like the community we are looking to help, we live all over the country and our children are treated at different 22q clinics – therefore choosing just one felt impossible!

And then we realized. once we got our children past the life-threatening/life-altering complications of 22q (open heart surgeries, palate repairs, feeding tubes, etc) one thing remained – the hopes and dreams that our children would one day become fully integrated members of their communities. We want our children to be successful, have families, hold jobs, be happy; all ordinary parenting wishes.

We chose the UC Davis MIND Institute to be our beneficiary for the 2020 #werun22q Ragnar Relay because their mission aligns with ours. We established the We Run 22q Innovation Fund to help families who are coming to the clinic to participate in research studies get additional information, to help the researchers and medical team of the clinic answer questions and begin research projects in order to receive additional grant money to continue these projects, and to allow the team to bring in more patients from out of town who might not ordinarily have a chance to see this wonderful clinic and it’s amazing team.

We hope that you’ll consider giving a gift in your loved one’s name. We are humbled and thrilled to run for them.

Seven years ago, our son Nate was diagnosed with 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome at the age of 3 1/2 years. This diagnosis hit us like a ton of bricks and like every other parent in the digital age, we frantically searched the internet. Lucky for us, we found the 22q Family Foundation (then known as The Dempster Family Foundation).

Over the years, the 22q Family Foundations has supported us, and more importantly, Nate. They have:

provided education: for us, our son’s educators and medical providers via fact sheets, seminars, webinars and references.
promoted awareness: which has empowered us to do the same in our own community.
advocated for appropriate educational services for Nate via the free Education Station.
fostered a community: There’s such comfort in finding others who have shared experiences, learning from those that came before us and supporting those that are new to the diagnosis.
created hope for the future through scholarships for higher education and career coaching services.

Knowing that this organization is not-for-profit and run entirely by volunteers, fundraising for the 22q Family Foundation became a priority for our family. The #werun22q Ragnar race is one of the foundation’s biggest fundraisers and is a powerful way to spread awareness. Every year they raise funds to keep these programs running and provide the education, awareness, advocacy, support and community that have been so valuable to us and to make sure that these services are still there for the next group of frantic overwhelmed parents that are sitting down at their computer.