First-ever Emily’s Run draws 600 Sunday
By Kevin Kelley
Westlake
Published April 29, 2009

Emily Lewis is greeted by race director Cathy Milowicki as she finishes the two-mile walk at Sunday’s Rainbow Run to fund pediatric cancer research. (West Life photo by Larry Bennet)

Over 600 runners, many who registered late last week, turned out for the first ever Emily’s Rainbow Run, a four-mile run, and an accompanying two-mile walk/run in Westlake Sunday morning to benefit pediatric cancer research.

The event is named after Emily Lewis, a sixth-grader at Parkside Intermediate School in Westlake who is battling a rare form of kidney cancer known as Wilms tumor.

Cathy Milowicki, who organized the race, said the expectation for a inaugural race is about 200 participants.

“We more than doubled our race participants in the last, week,” said Milowicki, whose daughter Cari is classmates with Emily. “This far exceeded our expectations.”

Emily, 12, helped hand out medals to top finishers and prizes to raffle winners following the race.

“I think it was really cool that everyone turned out,” she told West Life. “It was really a big turnout, and we didn’t expect it for the first year. Maybe next year, it will be even bigger.”

In the four-mile run, Brian Gibbons was the top male finisher, and Jennifer Parker was the top female finisher. The top under-19 male and female finishers in the two-mile walk were Vincenzo Marinucci and Julie Solarz. The top 19-and-over walkers were David Strong and Coleen Hales.

Emily’s mother, Debbie, not only participated in the race but won her age division of 40 to 44-year-olds.

John Lewis, Emily’s father, said the fund was created in association with Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital to expand research of treatments for childhood cancers.

Because many pediatric cancers are relatively rare, Lewis explained, drug companies do not spend large amounts of money developing drugs to fight them since the financial payoff would be minimal.

“Basically what kids get is ‘hand-me-down’ adult drugs,” he said.

Emily recently completed a month-long series of radiation treatment at Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati to fights tumors that had spread. Only a few hundred cases of Wilms tumor are diagnosed in North America each year, her parents said.

The race was the second major fund-raiser for Emily’s Rainbow Fund. In 2007 a fund-raiser at Carrabba’s Italian Grill raised $12,000 for cancer research.

In addition to raising money for Emily’s Rainbow Fund, the family volunteers for and attends other fund-raisers for Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital. Emily has been a keynote speaker and participant at the Westlake Relay For Life fund-raiser for the American Cancer Society the past two years.

Hal Paul flips pancakes in the Westlake High School cafeteria at Sunday's Kiwanis Club pancake breakfast.

The road race was combined with the Westlake Kiwanis’ biannual pancake breakfast, with the Kiwanis making a donation to Emily’s Rainbow Fund.

John Lewis said that partnering with the Kiwanis breakfast brought credibility and publicity to the running fund-raiser.

Bruce Zyrkowski, president of the Westlake Kiwanis agreed.

“I think it worked out well for both,” he said.

For more information about Emily’s Rainbow Run and Fund, including race results, go online to www.emilysrainbowfund.org.

On the Web:

• Emilys Rainbow Fund