Houston father, son embark on 24-hour run for pediatric cancer patients

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Friday, September 11, 2015
Father, son embark on 24-hour run for Houston pediatric cancer patients
Father, son embark on 24-hour run for Houston pediatric cancer patients

HOUSTON -- A father and son duo plan to run for 24 hours straight, all in hopes of raising awareness for children battling cancer.

Jim and Dustin Abney said their journey is personal. Back in 2012, a family friend fell ill with the disease. Ever since, they've made it their mission to help find a cure.

"We've got a close family friend named Sammy that was diagnosed in August 2012. I ran my first 5K in honor of him in September 2012," said Jim Abney.

"That's when I realized after meeting some folks with the Snowdrop Foundation you could actually go out, run, work on getting healthy yourself, along with promoting pediatric cancer, raising funds to help provide the research at Texas Children's Hospital, and as Dustin said provide scholarships to pediatric cancer survivors."

Starting at 8 a.m. Friday, they said they'll run from Rice University in Houston all the way to Sugar Land. The Abneys will finish their 24-hour run at the TRC Run Over Cancer 5K.

"A lot of time, hard work, dedication. It's not easy every day," said Dustin Abney. "You know the kids fighting cancer don't have it easy we're they go to chemo. They don't have it easy spending months in a hospital so a few hours of hard training day after day is surely nothing when you think about it like that."

For more information and to make a donation, visit the websites of the Snowdrop Foundation and Texas Children's Hospital.

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