Strong support
WARSAW – Nearly a hundred people came out on a beautiful July Saturday morning to participate in the third annual SnyderSTRONG 5K held at the River View Community Park in Warsaw. The event is held to honor the memory of Addy Anne Snyder and Grady Patrick Snyder, the daughter and son of Pat and Stephanie (Lapp) Snyder, who passed away at young ages (9 months and 6 weeks, respectively) to a rare genetic disease and to raise funds for the SnyderSTRONG Scholarship Fund.
One of this year’s participants was Elizabeth Hains who was at the event with her daughter Isabelle, who was in a stroller. Hains said this was her first year of participating in the event, “I wanted to come out and support the family and it’s for a great cause.”
Stephanie (Lapp) Snyder said, “We do this to raise money in memory of our kids and it’s also a nice community event. Everyone in the community was so wonderful to us during our trying time. It means a lot to us because our first year we were able to give away two $1,000 scholarships and this past year we were able to give a $750 scholarship to someone at River View going into the medical field.”
“Every year we are very lucky to have somebody from Donate Life come and try to raise awareness for organ donation because our daughter was able to be an organ donor, she actually could have been saved from an organ donation. But we think it’s really important and that’s another message we try to get across. We said that although Addy may not have been able to be saved, all of the lives that she has been able to save, not only from giving her organs but other people that have signed up to be organ donors.”
Stephanie said about the support, “I think I say this every year but it’s so overwhelming that every year – we think we may not get as big of a turnout and then everyone comes out – and it’s just – I mean, you go around town and you still see the AddySTRONG shirts or the stickers or someone tells us a story. It’s nice to know that people still keep us in their thoughts and prayers.”
The scholarship fund is maintained by The Coshocton Foundation and checks can be made payable to The Coshocton Foundation, specify “SnyderSTRONG Scholarship Fund” and mail to: Coshocton Foundation, PO Box 55, Coshocton, OH 43812. Your contribution is tax deductible.
mark@coshoctoncountybeacon.com
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