RAISED OVER $6,000!  Thank you, all!  (4/10/09)

Update:  Raising fundraising target to $6k.  Thank you for your tremendous support!  (2/20/09)

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Dear Friends & Colleagues,

On behalf of The ALLY Foundation, I will be running the 2009 Boston Marathon. 

The ALLY Foundation is named after Alexandra Nicole Zapp, a woman whom I am sure I would have been friends with if I had been given the chance.  On July 18, 2002, while driving home from a charity concert, Ally pulled over at a rest stop in Bridgewater, Massachusetts.  The rest of her story I am taking from Gretchen Voss’ article “Last Exit,” published in the October 2002 issue of Boston Magazine:

“Neither Ally nor the night manager could have any way of knowing that a dangerous sexual predator, Paul Leahy, with twenty four convictions including rape and kidnapping was working in their midst; completely unsupervised, untreated, and recently released from prison by the state.

Paul Leahy attacked Alexandra as she opened the women's restroom door. There was little Alexandra could do to fight Leahy, a man twice her weight, but she fought hard, even pleading with him to let her go and claim that he had rescued her from an attacker. It was useless.

Next door in the men's bathroom State Trooper Stephen O'Reilly heard suspicious noises, and upon investigation saw blood on the door to the women's restroom. Trooper O'Reilly drew his gun and opened the restroom door to find Leahy washing his hands in a blood soaked room. Leahy said ‘I lost it, I just lost it.’”

Alexandra's death was due to a catastrophic failure of the criminal justice system, the very institution mandated to protect the innocent. Paul Leahy's rights were put before Alexandra's when the state allowed a repeat violent sex offender to roam the streets freely.

I’m running the Boston Marathon because The ALLY Foundation is personal to me.

With 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men being sexually abused in their lifetime, a large segment of our society are victims or in danger of becoming victims of sexual abuse.  

The worst thing I could imagine is to turn away a chance to prevent what happened to Ally from happening to others.  That is why I believe in The ALLY Foundation so much.  The ALLY Foundation works with authorities, elected officials and activists to enact legislation that limits the number of repeat sex offenders who get back into our neighborhoods and streets.  The ALLY Foundation takes practical actions to correct the flaws in our criminal justice system regarding sex offenders.

The Boston Marathon is on Monday, April 20, 2009.  My goal is to raise $3,000.00 for the Ally Foundation, so that they can use funds to expand their cause nationwide.

Your support and donation would be greatly appreciated.  Donations can be given online by going to www.firstgiving.com/michelleyi.  The ALLY Foundation’s website can be found at http://www.theallyfoundation.org.

Hope to hear back from you and please stay in touch. 

Sincerely,

Michelle