TeamPWCF Rocks the Marathon

TeamPWCF represented the PWS community well at the Long Beach Marathon over the weekend of October 13th – 15th.

It started with Team captain, Julie Casey, along with her husband Dan and son Ryan, setting up the information booth at the expo on Friday morning. Julie worked the booth all day with some help from Dan, and from Mari Ota and daughter Lindsay Wang (PWS). Both former TeamPWCF participants, Mari and Lindsay couldn’t race this year, but still wanted to help, so they joined Julie Friday afternoon for the post-work crowds. Lindsay also did an incredible job helping prepare the information cards for Sunday.

Saturday morning Julie was up early to set up the team booth ahead of the 5K participants arriving. A few people dropped out before race day, but 30 people, including 4 who have PWS, did the 5K on Saturday. Wearing their team shirts, they had a great time raising awareness for PWS. Gail Dong volunteered to stay back to watch the booth and take pictures of returning team members otherwise it would have been 31 people on the course.

After the 5K, it was back to the Expo Booth. The Caseys again got the booth ready for day 2, and then Julie was joined in the afternoon by the Dong Family (Rodney, Gail, and Kiran), and James Ngugi, as all helped talk to people who visited the booth and prepare the rest of the information cards for Sunday.

Sunday, over 17,000 people participated in the sold-out races, including 4 TeamPWCF participants on the Bike Course and 5 TeamPWCF participants (two who first did the bike race) on the Half Marathon Course. And TeamPWCF was there again with a booth at the finish line festival. Since racers are focused on rest and recovery after finishing their race, TeamPWCF focuses on giving quick information. Julie and Board Member, Dr. June-Anne Gold worked the crowds passing out granola bars attached to information cards to bikers and runners as they returned to the village area. People read the cards, which also have a QR code to the website, as they eat the granola bar.

Between talking to people at the booth, people passing by seeing the booth, our shirts on the course, the information cards passed out on Sunday, being listed as one of the largest teams on the marathon website, and our Facebook event listing being picked up by some local websites, PWS and PWCF was visible to thousands of people!

In addition to the amazing awareness, the team, led by the Casey Family, raised over $8,500 for PWCF. This money helps fund things like advocating for families, providing resources for families and professionals, and funding PWS clinics.

Race weekend is always inspiring as people from all over, and of all abilities come to participate. Next year’s event will be October 5-6, 2024, so mark your calendar and be on the look out next year for team registration.