About the Legal Run 2015

May 31 is the day of the Russian legal profession and World No Tobacco Day. June 1 is the Children's Day. We made up our minds to join these wonderful occasions and thus we got the first charity Legal Run - a unique fund raising project to support the patients of the Gift of Life Foundation.

The Run's participants were the representatives of a rather athletic profession - lawyers. The contributions were collected during the online registration for the Run and the money raised were directly transferred to the Gift of Life Foundation's account to render named children patient medical assistance.

In 2015 the Run turned international: On May 31, 2015, together with the primary Run the Moscow, under the auspices of Legal Run 2015 the primary Runs were held in St. Petersburg, London, Nizhny Novgorod, Samara and Novosibirsk, and gathered more than 1300 lawyers-participants, 500 of which took part in Moscow Legal Run at VDNH.

In addition to official runs in the above cities, at the same day the Global Legal Run Event – global lawyers flashmobs to support Legal Run - was held globally. 200 people took part in the event in those cities and countries where there is still no official Legal Run: on May 31 they went out to the streets of their cities and ran some distance having made a voluntary contribution to the  Gift of Life Foundation's account. Thus, the Legal Run lawyers took a run in 26 cities and 14 countries: in Russia - from Vladivostok to Kaliningrad, in Europe - from Prague to Lisbon, there was even a couple of lawyers who joined the Run in the USA.

Over 2.6 million rubles was raised within the framework of the project, which were used for named patient medical assistance for eight severely ill kids: Dima Pryadukhin, Orel, acute lymphoblastic leukemia; Elina Romanenko, Volgograd, atypical teratoid rhabdoid tumor; Masha Ilyina, Tver, acute lymphoblastic leukemia; Ksenia Chirkunova, Angarsk, acute myeloblastic leukemia; Artem Koval, Moldavia, Acute acute myeloblastic leukemia; Sonya Kalinina, Ivanova, neuroblastoma. Unfortunately, there was no possibility to save Ruslan Ruppel (Popovo-Lezhachi settlement of the Kursk Region, acute lymphoblastic leukemia), although the necessary medicines were purchased on time and the boy began a course of treatment, but such is life.

The remaining funds were spent on the surgery for a 4-year girl Sarvinoz fighting a terrible disease - anaplastic ependyma, brain tumor. It is her, for whom we extended the fundraising. Thanks to your kindness and support, we received even more funds than it was necessary for the operation of the baby-girl, so the rest of the funds will go for treatment of another boy - Kostya Afanasyev, Kemerovo, who is struggling from neutropenia.

Over 300 people worked to implement the Legal Run project: including steering committees in Moscow and other cities of official runs, lawyers and marketing specialists not indifferent to sports and charity and certainly volunteers.

In those cities the events were organized by a team of professionals consisting of lawyers - runners, marketing specialists and committed representatives of a number of law offices who love sports and smart charity. The Run was held according to the score-sheets in compliance with sporting events rules and standards, including available ambulances, drinking points, indicators, professional judges, etc.

For the first time Moscow Legal Run was held on May 31, 2014 in Moscow, 5 and 10 km distances, in the picturesque Novodevichie prudy park. There were 200 participants in the Run and 300 supporters.

Last year over 500 thousand rubles were collected that was transferred to the Gift of Life Charity Foundation to help Ansorjohn Asrorov – a two-year-old baby boy from Tajikistan diagnosed with retinoblastoma. Ansorjohn got through treatment in the Russian Oncological Scientific Center named after N.N. Blokhin at the beginning of 2014. The boy carried over the therapy rather well: there were some complications, but he succeeded to get through them in time. In summer 2014 Ansorjohn was dismissed provided that the child should be regularly brought for follow-up examinations. The last examination took place in December, the results gave hope both to parents and to doctors. The boy is in remission now, no elements of tumor growth are discovered.

As seen from the slogan RUN. SMILE. BEFRIEND, the project urges the professional lawyer association to unite to help the ones who struggle for their lives. Let us socialize, get acquainted, and together do something good - with pleasure and a smile, strengthening the body and spirit, as to run and to work to overcome yourself is real fun!

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all the persons involved in the project, participants of the Run in difference cities where the official Run was held, flashmob participants from 26 cities and 14 countries, their supporters, friends, organizers, partners, sponsors, volunteers and all who made contributions in private capacity. Together we achieved the impossible!