I've aligned myself with Team Sadie for my run in the Baltimore Marathon, October 11, 2008. Team Sadie is raising money for "Sadie's Gift", a charity established to raise funds for Johns Hopkins Hospital Children’s Center. You can read about the charity at this site:   http://www.sadiesgift.org/.

Here's the short version:

Sadie’s Gift has been established to raise funds for Johns Hopkins  Hospital Children’s Center. After acheiving great success in 2007,      we hope to establish an endowment that will be created in Sadie's      memory. This endowment will support the training program for doctors who care for critically ill children in the Pediatric Intensive Care      Unit (PICU) along the east coast.

I'm a true sucker for this kind of thing, being both a parent and a grandparent, and I grew up in the Baltimore area. And my dad taught at Hopkins (Peabody, actually), so Hopkins is near and dear to my heart. So I'm dedicating my run to this cause. What does that mean? Well, first it means I made a donation of my own. But I'm also asking anyone who reads this to donate. You can do so easily and securely, over the internet...

Just go to the Johns Hopkins Childrens Center website and to the ONLINE GIVING FORM page (https://jhweb.dev.jhu.edu/eforms/form.do?formId=5733).

You can make you donation on that page. Please (please please) indicate that your gift is for "Sadie Elizabeth Abell Endowment" by checking radio box near the top. Please also "Select a Runner"  -- Steve Carton (that would be me:-). My name is near the end of the long list and they are not alphabetical, so be persistent

And most of all, thank you. Thank you for the support and thank you for the gift.

Steve