June 24, 2014

COLUMBIA, S.C. – The South Carolina Chapter of Uplifting Athletes will hold its second Lift For Life event Thursday, June 26 from 6-7 p.m. at the USC Fieldhouse.

Lift For Life is the signature fundraising event for the Uplifting Athletes nationwide network of 25 college football student-athlete led chapters.

The Gamecocks Chapter continues its mission of raising awareness and research dollars for the rare disease Pelizaeus Merzbacher, the chosen rare disease of the South Carolina Chapter.

“Our goal is to raise awareness and $5,000 for a rare disease that a family member of a teammate is battling,” South Carolina Chapter Vice President Jordan Diaz, a redshirt senior fullback from Hamilton, N.J., said. “This is our second year holding a Lift For Life and my teammates and I are excited. For our fans who can’t join us, you can still support either our offense or defense team by visiting our donation page.”

The South Carolina Lift For Life is open to the public.

For fans that wish to attend the event at the Fieldhouse and watch the offense and defense Lift For Life teams compete against each other, the chapter is asking fans to contribute $5 per adult and $2 for children 12 and under. The admission fee will serve as a donation to PMD research. PMD is a rare central nervous system disorder in which coordination, motor abilities and intellectual function are delayed to variable extents.

In order to donate to the South Carolina Lift For Life and help the team reach its $5,000 goal please visit the donation page at give.upliftingathletes.org/scliftforlife2014.

Players will not be available for autographs before, during or after the session. In addition, pets are not permitted. All fans and media attending the event must stay behind the yellow rope.

Uplifting Athletes is a full service national nonprofit organization aligning college football with rare diseases and raising them as a national priority through research, outreach, education and advocacy. What makes Uplifting Athletes unique is that our university chapters are run by current football student-athletes, providing them with an opportunity to gain management and leadership skills while learning how to leverage their assets and abilities to make a positive and lasting impact. Each chapter adopts one out of approximately 7,000 rare diseases (such as Aplastic Anemia, cystic fibrosis, pediatric brain cancer, kidney cancer, Leukemia, Neimann Pick Type-C, Neuroblastoma,, Fanconi anemia, etc.). For more information about Uplifting Athletes, visit www.upliftingathletes.org.