Kids & Family
Sunday Road Race to Raise Money for Hope For Gus Foundation
Hope for Gus was established by a longtime Souhegan teacher and his wife to raise money and awareness about Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, an incurable disease their son was diagnosed with in 2010.
Submitted by the Hope for Gus Foundation
Sunday, Dec. 1, at Stratham Memorial School at 39 Gifford Farm Road, will mark the second annual “All I Want for Christmas is a Cure for DMD” run, where runners and walkers can choose their course of either 2 or 4 miles. This event will benefit The Hope for Gus Foundation, which works to find a cure for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. The “All I Want for Christmas is to Cure DMD” Run will start at 10 a.m., registration starts at 9 a.m. at the school.
Steve and Tonya Dreher are the co-founders of Hope For Gus and Steve is a long-time teacher at Souhegan High School in Amherst. They began this foundation in 2010 after their 4 year-old son Gus was diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. When their friend Jessica Deans of Greenland learned the true facts of DMD – that it is a terminal muscle-wasting disease with no cure or effective
treatment – she immediately felt compelled to help them raise money. A runner herself, Jess decided to organize a run in her community – to not only raise money, but to raise awareness of DMD.
With money raised, the lives of thousands of boys born with DMD could extend past the age of 20. “In the past few years, we have worked with groundbreaking scientists,” says Steve Dreher. “Now more than ever, those scientists are close to finding a cure. The only thing standing in their way is a lack of funding ... that’s where the community and Hope for Gus come in.”
Additionally, a recent trend to screen already approved FDA drugs for effectiveness in treating DMD make the potential for a short term treatment even more likely and our need to raise money more compelling.
The “All I Want for Christmas” Run will be a festive event for everyone, with holiday music, hot chocolate, race apparel prizes for the male and female winners in each division, winners in each category, race memorabilia for all registrants, and the spirit of community! Please join us in helping cure Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.
To register, go to www.running4free.com and search “All I Want for Christmas.” Advance registration saves $5!
For more information, please call Jess Deans at 919-816-5244 or jessicadeans3@gmail.com. For more information on Hope for Gus, go to www.hopeforgus.org
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