KANSAS CITY, Mo. — 4,500 Kansas City runners got the rare chance to race in 68 degree temperatures deep inside the limestone caverns at the Hunt Midwest Sub Tropolis on Sunday morning.
The 32nd Annual Groundhog Run has raised more than $4,000,000 for the Children’s Therapeutic Learning Center in Kansas City.
Children’s TLC is a special place for kids with special challenges. The center provides physical and occupational therapy to help kids meet their goals.
Denise smith was born with left sided cerebral palsy. She went to Children’s TLC as a small child. The independence she was taught there brings her back to the race year after year to meet her disability head on. As an adult and confident runner, she has a message for the students at Children’s TLC.
“I would like them to know that they can do things even when people tell them they can’t. They have to figure out a way that they can and don’t listen to the naysayers,” said Smith.
Denise met her friend, Kerry Kuck, at a runners group in Denver. He is totally blind, but most of the time he tries to forget about that.
“If you can dream it you can do it. That sounds a little ‘pie in the sky’ but part of the dream is working out your steps; little baby steps. Do this first. If you can work it out in your mind you can probably do it,” said Kuck.
That is a message that resonates with Dan and Laurisa Ballew. Their two-and-a-half-year-old daughter has a condition where tumors grow inside her major organs. Since she came to Children’s TLC in August, she has started to walk and her vocabulary is expanding.
“It has changed our life. When you have a child with special needs, even seeing them eat with a fork. That is life-changing to you. Things we were fearful she couldn’t do. She is flying,” said Laurisa Ballew.
As Children’s TLC’s biggest fundraiser of the year, the Groundhog Run brings people of all abilities together with inspiration that obstacles were meant to be overcome, and the determination to continue to do just that, one step at a time.
