Regan Dickinson Denver Ski and Snow Report Examiner
Colorado native son and pro snowboarder Chris Klug is in town today as part of nationwide campaign by Purina ONE BeyOnd called $1 Million in One Day. The campaign is on the road today in New Orleans with former New Orleans Saint football star Duece McCallister, New York with Josh Lucas, Miami with Chef Michelle Bernstein and with Klug in Denver.
Klug and his team, as well as the other three teams, will be choosing random people on the streets of Denver asking them to vote for a charity they’d like to give a $5,000 donation to. Those asked to vote will be given $500 gift cards to donate to their favorite charity. Each team was given $200,000 to give to people and charities for the campaign.
Klug has his own non-profit foundation, the Chris Klug Foundation (CKF), “dedicated to promoting lifesaving donation and improving the quality of life for donors, donor families, organ transplant candidates and recipients.”
Klug recently celebrated the tenth anniversary of his own life-saving liver donation, a donation he waited about six years to receive. In a remarkable comeback, Klug competed in the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics and came away with a Bronze medal. Now, when he’s not snowboarding abroad or in his hometown of Aspen, he’s spreading the word and helping people who need donations or who have had donations themselves.
“If you find yourself in a similar situation, or any type of adversity, the biggest thing is to dig your heels in, fight like heck and never give up. I refused to allow myself to believe that I couldn’t overcome it. I fought it as hard as I could and did everything in my power to achieve a quality of life after my transplant,” Klug said this morning in Denver. “Knowledge is power, and I learned as much as I could about the entire process, my disease and the procedure. Ultimately, I had a lot of confidence in my decision to have a transplant and the team at the University of Colorado that did the procedure. When I was in pre-op about to undergo the procedure I knew I did everything I could to prepare for it, and it was in God’s hands.”
Since only four teams hit the streets today, there is still $200,000 that Purina ONE wants to give away. The last of the funds will be distributed to charity online from its Facebook page (Purina ONE's Facebook). Fans will vote for their favorite charity and the remaining $200,000 will be split among the top five charities based on the percentage of votes.
Purina ONE decided to give back this holiday season after surveying people to find out how they give back during the holiday season. Over 90 percent of people, across all demographics, surveyed said they wished that they could give more to charity. Those who have not given to charity this year cited the lack of disposable income as the main reason.
For more information about the Chris Klug Foundation, go tohttp://chrisklugfoundation.org/. If you’re downtown today, keep an eye out for Chris and help him give away some money to a worthy cause.
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