“We never really understood why it was a 4-mile event. This year we changed it to a 5K,” Director of Development Nicole Holubar said about a 3.1-mile course qualifying runners for the Peachtree Road Race in July. “It’s easier on the runners and, it being the summer, it’s hot out there.”
Participants will turn up the heat on a disorder characterized by seizures — sudden bursts of brain activity disrupting other brain functions — which affect 150,000 Georgia residents, a figure exceeding the national average of 1 percent.
“People who are there for awareness do the walk portion,” Holubar, a Morningside resident, said about an unchanged 1-mile event. “They walk around and get the sense of community. They have their team sign. A lot of them wear team T-shirts that they make themselves.”
She and her half-sister Samantha Krantz of Canton will wear team T-shirts for Bud’s Loves, named by their mother Camille Krantz in memory of her son Martin “Bud” Holubar, who died in July 2005.
“We’re doing the Magnolia Run in memory of my brother, who passed away at 19 from sudden unexplained death in epilepsy. It’s called SUDEP for short,” said Samantha, 15, a sophomore at the Weber School in Sandy Springs. “We want to raise money for kids and adults for medication and education about epilepsy so they’re more aware and they don’t have to lose somebody at a young age like we had to lose our brother.”
Samantha was only 8 at the time, but said her sibling made a deep impression.
“He was always encouraging me. He would always tell me, ‘There’s no day but today so live your life to the fullest,’” she said, quoting the theatre lover’s favorite musical “Rent.”
Holubar said her brother, then a University of Georgia student, inspired her to get her UGA degree in nonprofit work while Samantha hopes to discover a cure — or a cause.
“It’s one of the oldest conditions known in history, but there’s still so much unknown about it,” Holubar said.
One of the newest fundraising tools, Facebook, will help Samantha help contribute up to $500 to the event’s goal of $75,000. “We have two weeks to raise money so I’ve been doing everything,” she said.
If you go
What: Magnolia Run
When: Aug. 25 at 7:30 a.m.
Where: Perimeter Mall, 4400 Ashford Dunwoody Road, DeKalb County
Registration: $25 advance, $30 day, $20
children 12 and under
Benefits: Epilepsy Foundation of Georgia
Information: (404) 527-7155 or www.epilepsyga.org
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