Raising money in honor of my great niece.
Congenital Cytomegalovirus (sy·toe·MEG·a·low·vy·rus), or CMV, is the most common viral infection, occurring in about 1 in 200 births, and the leading non-genetic cause of hearing loss that infants are born with in the United States. Every pregnant woman is at risk of acquiring CMV, and only 9% of women know about it!
Now, imagine being a parent of a child who is deaf, will have severe developmental delays, and issues with motor skills from a virus you have NEVER heard about, and furthermore were never told about during multiple visits to your doctor. This is the nightmare that CMV brings to our family every single day, and to countless unbeknownst parents all over the world. For this reason, the primary goal of Grace’s Run is to bring awareness to it. The more people who know and act, the greater the chances of mandating universal newborn screening, and eventually a vaccine against it, become.
The alternate goal of Grace’s Run is to fund-raise for the National CMV Foundation to help them in their mission to promote awareness, provide access to resources and share prevention information to eliminate congenital CMV.
Thank you so much for your interest in our event! Please don’t hesitate to message us with any questions you may have - we look forward to seeing you on race day! If you are ready to help us in our mission to eliminate CMV, please sign up here.
Sincerely,
Shayne, Meg, Finn, and Grace Gaffney
