July 20, 2022

6th annual Second Chance 5K brings awareness to organ donation

Event to be held Saturday, Aug. 13, 2022

After receiving a heart transplant in 2015, Craig Smith knew he wanted to honor his donor by raising awareness for organ, tissue and cornea donation in Pennsylvania. In 2016, he founded his non-profit, Second Chance Fundraising, along with his best friend, Derek Partsch. The annual 5K is an event that allows Smith to raise money for CORE (Center for Organ Recovery and Education) and to discuss organ donation with community members.

“There are so many people waiting on the transplant list. Organ donation saves lives and our goal is to make sure people understand how important it is to sign up to be a donor,” said Smith.

The 5K will be held Saturday, Aug. 13 from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. at the Berwind-Wayside Festival Grounds in Sidman, Pa. The registration fee is $25 for ages 18 and up. Children up to age 17 can register for free. All runners will receive a gift bag and additional door prizes will be given out after the race.

The event will also include a basket raffle from 9 a.m.-1p.m., 50/50 chances and gift card giveaways. Food will be available to purchase from Rayne’s Backyard BBQ as well. Second Chance Fundraising has been able to donate thousands of dollars from the 5K over the years to CORE and Smith was named the Donate Life America Volunteer Service Award winner in 2020.

He mentioned that this year’s race will feel different without his mother, Laurie Smith, who passed away in 2021.

“She was my biggest supporter and she loved this event. My mom also became a hero because she was a cornea donor. I hope that we get a huge turnout and everyone can celebrate second chances and giving the gift of life,” he stated.

For more information about the 5K or to donate to Second Chance Fundraising, please visit secondchancefundraising.org.

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Katie Hanlon

publisher@mainlinenewspapers.com

Transplant Games of America

We finally took the video campaign cross country and attended the 2018 Transplant Games of America in Salt Lake City, Utah. This was my first time at the Transplant Games and what an experience it is. To spend an entire week around thousands of recipients, living donors, and advocates of donation was a truly humbling experience. The best part was Pumper being able to get out and show some of his athletic ability by competing in a few events! This video is just a small sampling of everything we were able to do while in Salt Lake City. Enjoy!

We took the video campaign cross country for the 2018 Transplant Games of America, held August 2-7 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Pumper had an amazing time meeting so many other recipients, donors, and advocates, but really loved being able to show off some of his athletic ability competing in a few events such as bowling and a 5K.

Heart's Desire NASCAR Race

Pumper and the rest of the team made the trek up to Pocono Raceway for their first NASCAR race, and it was awesome! None of us had been to a race before and we're all a little spoiled now after getting to spend the day in the pits with the entire crew. This was all made possible because of the help of NASCAR driver Joey Gase and his Go Green Racing team. Joey's mom was a donor when she passed away and Joey carries on her legacy by driving the Donate Life car and raising awareness for donation everywhere he goes. While we didn't make it for the pace car ride like we were supposed to we all had a great time and loved being at our first race. It was great to connect with someone from a completely different background, but with the same goal of saving more lives through donation. Huge shoutout to Joey, his PR manager Mike, and the rest of their team for all the help and hospitality!

Heart's Desire Roller Derby

Welp, this one ended up being a lot tougher than I thought it was going to be when we scheduled it. I had reached out to my old college friend Elyse because I knew she was involved in a roller derby league up near Scranton. Since we were going to be in the area already I thought it would be great to put Pumper on some skates and see what he could do. The answer was not much! I hadn't been on skates in probably 15 years and this was not like getting back on a bike. It became pretty clear that I wouldn't be able to actually compete with the girls in an actual game, so instead we just had some fun with it and learned more about roller derby. We all have a new found respect for roller derby athletes and what they can do on skates. Want to give a huge shoutout to our new friends at the Wilkes Barre/Scranton Roller Derby league! They came out on a Sunday morning to help us shoot the video and babysit Pumper! Keep watching all summer as Pumper goes on more adventures!

Heart's Desire Whitewater Rafting

This was definitely one of the events we were most excited about when we started planning this video campaign. I had reached out to Jim Greenbaum with Whitewater Adventures in Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania back in January and he said we could definitely make it work. When we got to the rapids on the day of the shoot Jim and his entire staff went out of their way to accommodate us and make sure we were going to get the best footage possible. Even more importantly they kept all of us in the boats all day! We had a great time and Pumper was even able to help paddle a little bit throughout the trip. Hope you enjoy the video and keep following our adventures all summer!

Video Campaign Kick Off

We are super excited to officially launch our Hearts Desire Video Campaign today! All summer long we are going to be traveling around the country as Pumper the Heart does all kinds of fun and crazy activities. The point of the campaign is to show that organ, tissue, and cornea transplantation gives people a "second chance" at life and allows them to continue to chase their dreams, goals, and hearts desires. We would like to give a huge shout out to The 1889 Foundation who generously awarded us a grant to make this campaign a reality. So please follow us all summer, like and share our posts, and keep an eye out for all of Pumper's crazy adventures! And if you're not already an organ donor you can sign up by visiting www.registerme.org