Jefri Leonardi admits she was a bit apprehensive in 2001 attending the first Heather’s Run, a fund-raiser named after her 12-year-old daughter.

It had been only a month, after all, since Heather had lost her 11-month battle with lymphoma. The pain of losing her child was still so fresh that Leonardi worried the event might be overwhelming.

“I really was dreading it, to be honest,” Leonardi said. “But once I got there, so many people came up and hugged me and cried with me – it ended up being a really uplifting experience. It is such an honoring of Heather.”

Five years later, Heather’s Run has become a tradition, bringing hundreds of people together each year for a 5K race and 1-mile fun run/walk to raise money for the families of children with cancer.

This year, the event is being held in honor of both Heather and Eliza Fortner, a Lawrence infant who succumbed to a brain tumor last November. Proceeds from this year’s run will go to help the Fortners, and to a special fund at Children’s Mercy Hospital that helps families meet some of the unexpected financial burdens of having a child with cancer.

Susan Stuever, who has been coordinating the run since its second year, said families often receive financial support for the major medical costs but are strapped for cash to pay nonmedical bills that add up, especially when a parent has quit a job to spend more time with a sick child.

Logan Keasling, left, and Stefanie Stuever race to the finish line in the 5K run of a previous edition of Heather's Run, a fund-raising event for Douglas County families with children who are cancer patients. The 2005 Heather's Run is scheduled for June 25.

“We are sort of the fund of last resort,” Stuever said. “There is all that little stuff that nobody thinks about, like ‘How do we pay the utility bills?'”

While the financial benefits of the run are important to the organizers – the run has averaged about $6,000 a year for the past few years, Stuever said – the emotional support it provides for families struggling with a sick child is invaluable.

When previous runs have been dedicated to children fighting cancer, Stuever said, the emotional benefit for the child is obvious.

“Families still come back to us and say, ‘To show up at the run with our kid and see all of these other kids running for them – the emotional support was what was really important,'” Stuever said. “If that’s all the run can accomplish, I think that’s important.”

And for Leonardi, the run that she at first dreaded has become a way to keep her daughter’s memory alive.

“When you lose a child, one of a parent’s biggest fears is that people will forget her,” Leonardi said. “Continuing to do Heather’s Run is a way of continuing to have her live on,” Leonardi said. “And I know she would love it. Kids helping out other kids – she would be so into that.”

Loss links members of newly formed group (06-10-04)

Run benefits families of children with cancer (06-16-03)

Interest in benefit runs high (05-19-01)

Memorial event honors girl whose courage never ran out (04-30-01)

Obit: Heather Leonardi (04-02-01)