A North Vancouver actress has set off on a long journey to help better the lives of two very special five-year-old girls who have never met each other.
Leah Cairns, known for her role as Lieutenant Margaret “Racetrack” Edmondson on Battlestar Galactica, is getting some help for her more than 6,000 kilometre walk from people around the world.
Cairns has organized an event called I Walk 4 Savannah and Seattle, and yesterday and today she invited people from all over the world to walk, run or cycle a few kilometres or more to make the up the distance to Burbank, California.
She wants to attract the attention of talk show host Ellen DeGeneres and that is where Ellen’s studios are located.
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“We are walking for them today in the hopes of covering the distance that it would take both of these girls to get to the Ellen DeGeneres show,” said Cairns.
The reason behind all of this is two little girls, Seattle Lennox and Savannah Greenawalt. Seattle, who is Cairns’ niece, lives in Kelowna, B.C.. Savannah lives in Charlotte, N.C.. Although the two have never met they have something in common. They were both diagnosed with rare disorders shortly after their first birthdays.
Seattle has transverse myelitis, which is a neurological disorder caused by inflammation of the spinal cord. Savannah has mitochondrial disease, suffering chronic bronchitis and fatigue and requiring oxygen to sleep.
In December Cairns launched a campaign to raise money for the girls’ medicals expenses not covered by insurance.
Participants of the event this weekend were asked to take a photo of themselves holding a sign with how many miles or kilometres they contributed to the journey and then Tweet or Facebook that photo to Ellen DeGeneres and her show producers.
For more information visit the Facebook page.
– With files from John Daly
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