June 26, 2015
The University of South Carolina football team endured sweltering weather on Friday afternoon, all for a good cause, as the squad took part in the third annual Lift for Life event at the football practice facility.
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 has a mission of raising awareness and research dollars for the rare disease Pelizaeus Merzbacher. The team selected that disease to assist redshirt junior Devin Potter’s cousin, Aaron Church, who suffers from PMD, an extremely rare condition that targets the central nervous system.
“The team knows about the disease because we tell them about it,” said Potter, “but it’s even better when they come up to me and ask me personally about my cousin. They ask if he’s going to be able to come down for a game.” Church recently had back surgery to help straighten his spine, according to Potter. “Just to know there are people out there who care and want to help my cousin and others with this disease, is great.”
“It’s hot out here and it’s steamy,” said Chapter President Devin Washington., who along with Ali Groves, Drew Williams and Perry Orth, helped organize the event. “But we’re going to play in game conditions like this as well, so it’s preparing us for the season.”
To support the South Carolina Chapter and help the Gamecocks reach their $5,000 goal, visit the Chapter fundraising site at give.upliftingathletes.org/southcarolinalift2015.
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.
