National Volunteer Week: Big D Climb

Here's to all volunteers, those dedicated people who believe in all work and no pay. 

~Robert Orben

Kim Carter, center, with two trainers from 24 Hour Fitness
at the 2013 Big D Climb

This week is National Volunteer Week and while The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is thankful for its volunteers year round, we are taking this opportunity to highlight seven outstanding volunteers that help make the North Texas chapter run so efficiently.

Kim Carter, the Regional Manager of Corporate Sales for Texas for 24 Hour Fitness, first became involved with the Big D Climb shortly after she became a club manager at the Downtown Dallas 24 Hour Fitness location.  24 Hour Fitness had become a sponsor with the event a year earlier but it is Kim who is credited with expanding the sponsorship and getting 24 Hour Fitness more involved with the Big D Climb and The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS).

Kim's connection to LLS and its mission is very personal.  Her mother, Johanna Carter, was diagnosed with MDS in her early 60s and it quickly turned into leukemia.  Johanna's age at the time of diagnosis kept her from being eligible to receive a bone marrow transplant and after three weeks of chemotherapy, she lost her battle.  During her treatment in Annapolis, Kim flew in every week and stayed at the Hope House when not with her mother in the hospital.  It was during those trips that Kim pledged to get move involved in the effort to find a cure for blood cancers.

Several years after first getting 24 Hour Fitness involved with the Big D Climb, Kim continues to ask "what more can we do?"  She has expanded the involvement of 24 Hour Fitness as a sponsor, created teams of trainers and members to participate, and is now working to expand 24 Hour Fitness' involvement with LLS' stair climbing events to other cities.

We are so thankful for Kim!