Clyde’s Run welcomed more than 350 runners in Mountain Park last Saturday who helped raise awareness and $20,000 for the Prader-Willi Syndrome Association. Started in 2005 by Hope Mays, the race honors her son Clyde, who died of the disorder in 2004.
Prader-Willi Syndrome is a genetic disorder linked to the brain that, along with developmental delays, causes a chronic feeling of hunger that leads to excessive eating and life-threatening obesity. “[People with Prader-Willi] do not get the sense of fullness as they are eating so they are always in a sense of starvation,” said Debbie Lange, executive director of the Prader-Willi Syndrome Association- Georgia.
“Clyde was diagnosed when he was three, so we had the resources to maintain a diet and keep restrictions on him,” recalled Mays, who used to keep food locked up to prevent her son from overeating. “But, even with diets and regimens, it is still difficult to enforce when your child is in school or just away from home because awareness about this disease is so little.”
Currently, there are 130 people identified in Georgia, out of the 800 that are estimated to have this disorder.
“Not being well-known and hard to diagnose disease, we want to bring attention to it in schools, to doctors, and the public in general,” Lange added. “Our biggest goal is to help people with Prader-Willi Syndrome live healthier, better lives.”
To find out more information on Prader-Willi Syndrome, visit www.pwsaga.org
In Other News: On July 14, six-year-old Kade Moledor presented a $3,000 check for the Atlanta Mission, the homeless shelter located in downtown. Moledor, of Big Canoe, Ga., hosted an open house titled "Hope for the Homeless", where he sold handmade bookmarkers and crafts to raising $1,500, which was matched by an Atlanta Mission donor. The Atlanta Mission provides emergency shelter, residential discipleship, job attainment, and transitional housing to more than 950 homeless men, women and children daily.
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