One Boston Day and the Boston Marathon

It’s Marathon Day in Boston (excuse me, “Evacuation Day”), which is a big deal in these parts. The event creates over $150 million of economic activity in Greater Boston. Many athletes are able to run only by raising money for charity – over $25 million of donations are made each year.

But the Marathon Day bombing in 2013 also remains on Bostonians’ minds. That year, the marathon was on April 15, a date the City of Boston has christened One Boston Day. Every year, the Mayor calls for citizens to commit a civic act on One Boston Day. I happened to be at the Tax Day Rally on April 15; I didn’t think that was the best act to pledge for One Boston Day.

Today, I made my pledge for One Boston Day by donating to the Brittany Fund for Trauma and Recovery. The long and short of it: Brittany Loring was a survivor of the Marathon Bombing four years ago. The fund she started, with her family and with the Good Samaritan EMT-in-training who helped her at the scene focuses on providing assistance to survivors of low-profile trauma. They’ve so far given nearly $70,000 to 30 trauma survivors. Those incidents never reached the headlines the way the Marathon Bombing did; survivors were less able to raise assistance from the public. The Brittany Fund, which you can read more about in the Boston Globe here, helps to fill that gap.