Dulles Greenway Drive for Charity

Take a Drive … Make a Difference!

The Seventh Annual Dulles Greenway Drive for Charity will be Thursday, May 17, 2012.

All proceeds from tolls collected that day will benefit local charities, including the March of Dimes. This year, the Dulles Greenway hopes to contribute $240,000. Please Drive For Charity on Thursday and help March of Dimes programs. 

 Visit: www.dullesgreenway.com/drive-for-charity

Greenway helps March of Dimes put kids on road to health
By Jason S. Rufner

Julie's son Nathaniel is 12 years old.  He likes playing video games and is doing well in school.  He owns a toothy smile that beams out from under his mop of hair.

Nathaniel's smile might not be here if not for the March of Dimes' work with Inova Fairfax Hospital's Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) of which he is a graduate. Nathaniel was born four months premature, weighing one pound, twelve ounces.

Julie Kipers didn't know Nathaniel’s birth would necessitate a four-month NICU stay until the day before it began.  Now, after she and her family received myriad benefits from the infrastructure of support and comfort afforded by the March of Dimes, she has flipped roles, becoming a long-time volunteer on the Parent Advisory Committee.

"His medical conditions now are barely there. He looks and acts like an average kid," she said as happy shouts from the just-finished March For Babies Walk reverberated around Reston Town Center.

Julie related a story from that morning, when parents of a recent NICU graduate emphatically shook Nathaniel's hand, glad to see evidence that their own child can in fact transcend such harsh maladies.

"Parents need to know from other parents that they will get through it day by day," Julie said. "We've been learning how best to get the family through those times."

The Kipers family is an ideal example of what the March of Dimes' NICU Family Support Program can do for our area's families, thanks in part to the ample yearly financial donations generated by the Dulles Greenway.

Over 6,000 families have engaged in programs of comfort and support as a direct consequence of the Greenway's financial contributions, according to Shannon Gilbert, Chapter Director of the March of Dimes' Maryland-National Capital Area chapter.

In 2005, the local chapter sought to expand its Family Support Program to Inova Fairfax in light of the 12,000 births cared for each year in that facility.  That's when the Dulles Greenway -- already long-established as a benefactor for the March of Dimes -- stepped up its support.

The relationship between the Greenway and the March of Dimes' National Capital Area division is as old as the Greenway itself.  Since the privately owned toll road opened in 1995, the Greenway has continuously partnered with the chapter through outreach like the March For Babies.

Now, as a beneficiary of the Greenway's annual Drive For Charity since that campaign began seven years ago, the March of Dimes relies upon the substantial monetary outlay to fund the many facets of its NICU Family Support Program.

"This program would not be in existence without the Dulles Greenway," said Gilbert flatly. "The Greenway is what started it."

The program, now in its sixth year at Inova Fairfax and with a satellite program at Inova Loudoun, has proven to be a needful one.

"Whether your baby is going to be in the NICU for a few days or many months, it can be a very difficult time, universally," said Sara Donahue, a March of Dimes NICU Family Support Specialist.

"That's where we can come in and provide that extra support to make sure the family knows what's going on and what they need to know to make the best decisions and reduce the stress."

Education, information, bilingual services, staff training and nursing modules are a few of the many pillars in the structure of support and comfort provided by the NICU Family Support Program -- even down to the sense of normality that comes from piecing together baby's first scrapbook.