Pittsburgh Marathon Helps Benefit Many Local Charities

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - 2013 marks the fifth year since the return of the Pittsburgh Marathon. Fittingly, the main event will be run on the fifth day of May.

The marathon has become much more than how fast the runners can run 26.2 miles around the city.

"This year, cumulatively, we will have raised $5 million for charity through this event," Race Director Patrice Matamoros

This year, runners will raise nearly $3 million for charity.

"There's a number of local companies and have really been able to grow their program because of this event.  Some of the smaller charities have doubled in size just because of the money they have raised through the marathon," Skip Grinberg said.

This year, 70 charities will benefit from three days of races as part of the Pittsburgh Marathon in May.

"We have 60 runners so far that are going to be running the 5K, half-marathon, full marathon that are going to raise money for the Free Wheelchair Mission so that we can get more wheelchairs," Linda Paterni said.

Free Wheelchair Mission has given away 700,000 wheelchairs worldwide. A total of $50,000 this year would allow them to donate nearly 700 more.

Genry Baker battled through leukemia at Children's Hospital for three years. He said a video game helped him forget about his troubles.

"I felt bad that they had nothing to do but just lay on their bed, so I asked my parents if we could give them video games also. So, that's how Genry's Kids with Cancer Fund got started," Baker said.

Marathon runners help him help other kids at Children's Hospital.

"They raise a lot of money for us. We had 60 runners last year, and we raised over $30,000 so that was enough to pay for the video games for like a year," Baker said.

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