February 4th was National Girls and Women in Sports Day. In recognition of all the girl and women athletes around the world who are using sports to create change, GiveForward.org interviewed Julie Lewis, a woman athlete, whose selfless actions have inspired us.

When an electrical fire on December 31st tragically destroyed much of the Maggie’s Place, Magdalene House in Phoenix, AZ, over a dozen young mothers, babies and volunteers were left with no place to live.  Julie Lewis, a former live-in volunteer at this house for at-risk, pregnant women knew she had to do something to help.

So Julie took it upon herself to raise money by starting a personal fundraising page on GiveForward.org and joining GiveForward’s Run for a Reason fundraising team for this year’s Shamrock Shuffle 8K race in Chicago.  Run for a Reason is an opportunity for young people to raise money for any cause that they care about, while doing something fun, healthy and active. The idea behind the event is that unlike most charity fun runs where everyone has to raise money for the same cause, with Run for a Reason, all the participants on the team get personal fundraising pages to raise money for the cause or charity they care about most.

When asked why she decided to join the Run for a Reason team for the five mile race, Julie, a former Division One athlete at Notre Dame told us that it certainly wasn’t because of her deep love of running in the cold.  Rather, Julie said she decided to join the Giveforward Run for a Reason fundraising team because “when I heard about the fire, I felt so helpless. I really missed the daily grab-bag-surprise-party flurry of activity of the Maggie’s Place community. Living there for a year as a volunteer was one of those experiences that leave an indelible mark on your life.  And since I couldn’t be out there to physically help rebuild my old home, I thought the next best thing would be to send some funds out there to help it get done faster.”

As it turns out, Julie has been pretty awesome about raising money.  Since creating her personal fundraising page last week, Julie has already exceeded her fundraising goal of $500.  She told GiveForward that she plans to continue raising money through the end of March and that the $500 she has already raised is just the “tip of the iceberg.”  We certainly hope Julie blows her fundraising goal out of the water and helps the Magdalene House get back on its feet in a hurry.

To learn more about Julie’s awesome efforts, you can visit her personal fundraising page: www.giveforward.org/we_didnt_start_the_fire

If you would like more information on how you can join the Run for a Reason Team and raise money for the cause you care about, visit: www.run4areason.com

To learn more about the wonderful work they are doing at Maggie’s Place and how you can help, visit  www.maggiesplace.org