Dash for Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness
Fifteen years and tens of thousands of runners and walkers have helped to make the annual Dash for Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness our biggest event each year. And we're not done yet.
Register for the Dash today!
The Dash for Organ and Tissue Donor Awareness is a collection of different courses, 10-kilometer and 5-kilometer runs, and a 3-kilometer walk designed to help promote organ and tissue donation and highlight the success of transplantation. All the distances depart from the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and continue along West River Drive and the banks of the Schuylkill River, drawing participants such as transplant candidates, transplant recipients and family members, hospital personnel, donor family members and the general public.
This year's Dash hits the starting line on Sunday, April 18 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Registration opens at 8:30 a.m. that morning.
The event will again kick off with a motorcade of motorcycles, paying tribute to fallen police officers and service men and women who had generously been organ and tissue donors. This effort has been led by liver recipient Luis Torres, member of the Warriors' Watch motorcycle club and a former police officer himself.
The Dash was first created in memory of Mickey Braverman, a liver transplant candidate who died before receiving a transplant. Mickey's widow, Claire, wanted the event to raise public awareness about the 18 people who die each day nationally while waiting for an organ transplant. Claire wanted to ensure that no other family had to go through the pain of watching a loved one die because an organ was not available.
Zoom+ Gift of Life President and CEO Howard M. Nathan kicks off the start of the 3K walk during the 2009 Dash.
That first Dash was held in April 1996, with 800 people and raised $17,000 for public education programs. But over the years, the event has grown vastly - and last year's Dash raised more than $400,000 to benefit organ and tissue donation awareness.
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