THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, December 26, 1995 TAG: 9512260130
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: TOM ROBINSON
LENGTH: Medium: 87 lines
Once there was a girl named Jennifer Braun. Jennifer ran races, through fields in the brisk winds of fall, around painted ovals in the springtime sun.
She was many things to many people; smart, shy, pretty, loyal friend and homecoming queen at Kempsville High School, loving daughter and sister. Then one day a few years ago, Jennifer learned she was very sick.
Everybody asked why, as everybody instinctively does when the innocent are afflicted so randomly, so terribly.
Then, as always, the answers remained hidden, and Jennifer got on with what she had to do. She vowed to get better, with medicine, by the sheer force of will, and there for a while she did get better, returning to school and her races.
But the evil returned, and this time Jennifer and the doctors were powerless against it. When Jennifer died at 17, people streamed in for hours to mourn her passing, to celebrate her life, to whisper goodbye.
What most didn't know was that, throughout her sickness, Jennifer had noticed the others, many much younger and poorer than her, also receiving treatment at the hospital. She didn't really know them, but she knew the burden that childhood illness places on parents and families.
She wanted to help. Just like her friends had helped her that time they held that race. The Jennifer Braun Run they called it, and 700 people showed up and raised $9,000 for her medical expenses.
Jennifer was there. She was dumbfounded. She could not comprehend so many people doing all that for her. She called it her happiest day ever. And later, remembering the others, Jennifer asked her mother if she could, when she was well again, give the money left over to sick kids.
Val Braun said yes, certainly. And the greatest thing is, though Jennifer died in 1992, Val is still saying yes. Because there is still a run for her daughter. The Jennifer Braun Memorial Run. And so a Jennifer Braun Fund because of it.
Every year Kendall Tata, a Kempsville track coach and a former all-state runner at the school, organizes and schedules the run for the last weekend of December. The 1-mile run/walk and 5K run at Mount Trashmore represent healthful closure to one year, hopeful renewal for the next, and robust rebirth for the fund, which receives all proceeds.
Val Braun administers it. That is, she writes checks from the fund to cover living expenses for families suffering financial hardship as a child battles critical illness.
A call from a particular social worker at Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters with news of a crisis is the only prompting Braun needs. A single parent and real estate agent, Braun in three years has paid more than $18,000 worth of rent and utility bills for about 70 families at King's Daughters and the Edmarc Hospice for Children.
Last year, the fund nearly ran dry. But the race came along just in time to refill the well. And as the latest Jennifer Braun Memorial approaches, Braun and Tata promise the race and the fund will continue as friends indeed.
Braun has included in her will a provision that her two other children are to handle the fund or else turn it over to Tata. And Tata says the run is here to stay.
It's a no-frills, low-expense gathering. There are no awards, and T-shirts go only to 100 entrants. It's funny, though. The run costs $8 or $10, but probably half of those who enter voluntarily pay more. For the cause. And for Jennifer, who in death touches more lives than she ever could have dreamed.
``I'm in awe of that,'' Braun says. ``It amazes me that this was a daughter of mine, that God put her in my hands to hold for a while. She was a gift. A gift that just couldn't stick around very long.''
On New Year's Eve day comes the chance to share our appreciation with Val Braun, and to take stock of our own gifts. A chance to don our leggings and sneakers and revel in our health.
A day to run. To walk. To feel every breath, step, twinge.
To write a check and take it to Mount Trashmore.
A day to hug our children.
And to remember that once there was a girl named Jennifer Braun. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
GARY C. KNAPP
Val Braun continues to administer a fund-raising 1-mile run/walk and
5K run at Mount Trashmore in memory of her daughter, Jennifer.
Graphic
WANT TO RUN?
[For complete graphic, please see microfilm]
by CNB