5th KatieDid Fun Run lifts up legacy of Mars alum
ADAMS TWP — To close family members and friends, Katie Nelson was the brightest light in their lives, and she brought a warm demeanor to every interaction.
Nelson, a Mars Area High School graduate, died in 2020 at age 23 after a brief battle with acute myeloid leukemia, a disease that affects the blood and bone marrow.
Later that year, three of her closest friends honored her final wishes by creating the KatieDid Foundation and launching a charity fun run.
During the fifth annual edition on Saturday, Aug. 30, foundation leaders Amber Fichter and Maggie Sarver said the run has generated more than $100,000 to aid community members dealing with cancer and advancing other initiatives that Nelson championed.
“She just always talked about plans for what she wanted to do,” Sarver said. “She was just such a light, so wonderful and just wanted to give back.”
Before becoming ill, Nelson was studying to become a dentist at Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine and had already taken part in dental mission work abroad through Global Dental Relief, a nonprofit based in Denver.
Part of the funds raised each year goes toward supporting individuals serving in that same mission of providing free dental care to impoverished communities across the world.
For the last three years, the foundation also has given out a monetary scholarship to a senior at Mars Area High School who is pursuing postsecondary education in the medical field.
Each year, the event sees 100 to 300 participants lace up their shoes to take on two laps around the paved trails at Adams Township Community Park.
“It means the world to us because through all these people is how we’re keeping Katie’s legacy alive,” Fichter said. “That’s why the foundation is called KatieDid because we’re trying to do as Katie would have done.”
To Nelson’s parents, Dee and John Nelson, the event serves as a reminder of everything that their daughter was about.
“Katie was always about having lots of friends and doing lots of things for people and to be there for everybody even when she was ill,” Dee Nelson said. “She would try and find ways to make her friends have a better time or feel better about themselves. She was just an amazing girl, and even though that’s my daughter, I’m proud to say that.”
Dee Nelson also credited the friend group for continuing to grow the organization in a way that would delight Katie.
“It’s incredible what her friends have done in her honor just to keep her memory alive and to help people that are going through the same thing that our daughter went through,” she said. “It’s just incredibly heartwarming.”
