In its 10th year, run/walk to promote organ and tissue donation has grown from humble beginnings.
FULLERTON – As Craig and Kathleen Hostert cruised the annual Donate Life Run/Walk course in a golf cart Saturday to ensure everything was running smoothly, they were repeatedly stopped by walkers who wanted to shake their hands, to give them hugs and to say "thank you."
People they didn't know wanted to thank them for organizing the event and for giving thousands of people hope.
The Hosterts, from Fullerton, aren't comfortable in the spotlight. But they are the face and the spirit behind the Donate Life event, which has grown to become the largest annual event in the nation promoting organ and tissue donation, according to One Legacy, a Los Angeles-based organ recovery group.
On Saturday, more than 11,000 people gathered for the 10th annual walk at Cal State Fullerton. That's up – way up – from the 1,000 or so runners and walkers who came to the first event in 2003.
The Hosterts founded it that year after Craig received a life-saving kidney transplant from Kathleen, his wife. They wanted to give others awaiting an organ transplant hope and get more people signed up to donate organs.
So Kathleen, then an elementary school teacher, took a week off of work and organized the inaugural event with Craig and a few friends.
"That first year, we were told to expect maybe 150 or 200 people," Craig Hostert remembered. "So getting as many as we did, we were thrilled."
Read more: http://www.ocregister.com/news/people-351497-life-event.html#
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{Register to be an organ,eye and tissue donor. To learn how, www.donatelife.net or www.organdonor.gov}
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