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Anyone who runs a marathon (or participates in ANY athletic event for that matter) can collect funds for Parkinson's. But, there a few issues to deal with. For the last five years I have been involved with Team Parkinson at the LA Marathon. Marathoners, cyclists and 5K runners have collected money for PD research and sponsors have donated funds to be represented on the T-shirts. Team Parkinson was approved by the LA Marathon as an "official" charity which allows it to use the logo and appear in LA Marathon materials. Supporters write a check to Team Parkinson. Money raised goes to the Parkinson Alliance and the Parkinson's Unity Walk which distribute it among the major PD organizations for research. Others have run marathons and local events without being "approved" by the local event. For instance, the NY Marathon has only one official charity that does not include PD. Individuals have raised money for PD by running in the NY Marathon. They just decide on a PD charity that their donations should go to and ask donors to write a check to that charity. If you are going to try to raise money on your own by running a marathon, etc., don't expect a PD organization to cover your expenses or put a great deal of time and energy into promoting your effort without any track record. PD orgs have an obligation to their donors to spend their time and money as efficiently and effectively as possible to raise funds. If they don't have a plan in place it may not pay to put something together for one or two runners. But, they won't turn away a check that has been written to them. Some non-PD charities organize nationwide "teams" for athletic events. The team recruits an athlete with the promise of training and paying for expenses. In most cases the athlete must guarantee a minimum of $3,000 to $5,000 of contributions to make this work. It's the only way that it pays off for everyone involved. On March 7th I'm going to run my second marathon for Parkinson's in LA. I decided that I could do my first marathon at the age of 50 because there were people out there with PD, like John Ball and his friends, that were doing it. If they could make the effort, why couldn't I? It took me six hours and forty-seven minutes. I was soundly beaten by a number of PWPs. Hopefully, I can close the gap a bit this year. My congratulations go out to the Brown family and all the folks at HAPS. If you want to learn more about Team Parkinson visit www.teamparkinsonla.org. I'm the guy in front with the cute teal shorts. On 2/16/04 10:47 AM, " [log in to unmask]" < [log in to unmask]> wrote: > Is there a Parkinson's related charity associated with the Boston Marathon? A > runner who recently ran in the Houston Marathon to benefit HAPS would like to > do the same thing in Boston. > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] > In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn