"PKD Stops with Me" a Personal Mission for Kansas Mom
Nicole Harr of Overland Park, Kan. was diagnosed with PKD ten years ago, just months after her father died from PKD complications. At the time, Harr was 33 and her children were eight and six. She wasn’t prepared for PKD to affect her, too.
“It was very upsetting to me,” Harr said.
But since her diagnosis, her condition hasn’t kept her from doing her part and participating in the fight for a cure. Over the last eight years, Harr’s team, the Fun Raisers, coordinated by her good friend Sue Full, has raised nearly $20,000 for PKD research and education through its support of the Kansas City Walk for PKD.
This September, Harr and her family and friends are again participating in the Walk for PKD and uniting with thousands of others nationwide to stop PKD before another generation has to face its effects.
“Fundraising gives me hope,” Harr said. “With each dollar I raise for the Walk for PKD, I feel hope for a cure for the next generation. This is my way to fight this disease on behalf of my family.”
Harr’s children, Emily, 18, and Hunter, 16, will also be involved in the fundraising this year for the Walk for PKD, and Emily, who plans to study photography at the University of Kansas this fall, is volunteering her camera skills to Chapter and Walk events.
“Having my children join me at the Walk for PKD makes me very proud and hopeful for a future without PKD,” Harr said. “It is very powerful to know that the money we raise will help make it possible for researchers to find a cure.”
Most recently, mother and daughter helped organize an event at the University of Kansas Medical Center, where PKD Foundation co-founder Jared Grantham, MD, leads PKD research. Dr. Grantham spoke at the event and encouraged staff and patients to join the Kansas City Walk for PKD, recently chosen as the UKMC Flagship Philanthropic Event for 2010. Already, teams of UKMC staff have committed to walk for PKD this September and, like Harr, believe in the mantra – “PKD stops with me.”
“I absolutely believe that PKD stops with me,” Harr said. “It is the reason I volunteer. It is the reason I walk. I want a treatment, a cure for my children so they don’t suffer the effects like my dad and my grandfather.”
Like Harr, you can walk – and fundraise, too. Sign up to participate in the Walk for PKD today. Together, we can make a difference. Together, we can stop PKD.