Fire Destroys Challenged Athletes Foundation Offices

A major fire destroyed the offices of the Challenged Athletes Foundation (http://www.challengedathletes.org). I posted an email they sent below.

The Challenged Athletes Foundation is a non-profit that was started by triathletes over 10 years ago to raise money and provide grants for athletes with physical disabilities so that they may participate in sports. Prosthetic limbs, racing wheelchairs, race expenses (on top of medical expenses) etc are major barriers to inclusion but thanks to CAF nearly 3000 athletes are able to participate where they otherwise may not have been able to.

They have had a huge impact on my life and that of many people with and without disabilities.

"CAF had a devastating fire today in our office building. The storage room
in our office, where we housed hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of
items that we have been collecting for our fundraiser next month, caught
fire today. Everything in the room was damaged by the fire, but thankfully
no one was hurt. All of the windows were broken by the fire department, in
order to let the thick smoke out. The Storage room is completes destroyed
and all the walls, furniture, equipment, throughout the office has horrible
smoke damage.

We (the staff and volunteers) spent 5 hours today sifting through the piles
of burnt and damaged stuff that the fire fighters brought out, trying to
salvage what we could; which was not much. We will be back on Monday to
pull out files other office equipment that we need, so that we can work from
home till we can relocate. We are still hopeful that the San Diego Triathlon
Challenge fundraiser will still happen next month.

If you would like to help CAF out during this disaster... you can click here
to help...
lis=1&kntae218746=0A6516B3ECD54784BA5E50C5888275F8&team=>


https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?supId=0&ievent=...
is=1&kntae218746=0A6516B3ECD54784BA5E50C5888275F8&team=

Please feel free to forward this link on to others...

Barbi~

Oh... and my wedding dress and flower girl dress was in the storage room
for safe keeping; they were melted by the heat of the flames, and are gone.
;o(
"