Members of the Marion Luckers Kidney Foundation joined with friends and supporters for the Bowling for a Cause Event at Liberty Lanes, 6500 Market St. in Upper Darby. Amateurs and semiprofessionals alike gathered at the bowling alley, and whether or not they knocked down the pins, they all made a strike against kidney disease.
“This is a fundraising event and part of the proceeds will go toward our Vera Williams Holiday Helping Hands event this December,” said Lynette Luckers, MLKF founder.
The Vera Williams Helping Hands event was named after a former recipient of the organization’s 2013 Unsung Heroes, which is given to a dialysis patient who is active in his or her community.
“Williams was nominated for her giving to her peers on dialysis.” Luckers said. “She was also on dialysis as well, and she would use her own money during the Christmas holiday to purchase gifts for dialysis patients.”
Luckers said Williams was nominated for the award by her daughter and was not aware that she was receiving the honor when she attended the award ceremony that year.
“She thought she was going to a dinner; she was very surprised,” Luckers said.
Williams died shortly afterward.
“We wanted to continue her legacy of distributing gifts to dialysis patients, and so we started the Vera Williams Holiday Helping Hands in honor of her as part of her season of giving,” Luckers said.
According to her, the message resonated among members of the community and tickets for the Bowling for A Cause event sold out.
Dr. Adu Ntoso, a nephrologist at Pennsylvania Hospital, has been a part of the MLKF for three years.
“This is really for kidney patients in support of patients on dialysis and patients with all kinds of kidney disease,” he said. “She [Lynette Luckers] is making great efforts and this is really in support of that effort.“Kidney disease is very common, not only among the general community but especially among the African-American population,” Ntoso said.
It is the deadly combination of high blood pressure and diabetes that accounts for about 3 out of 4 patients with kidney disease, according to the doctor. “These two diseases are very, very rampant in the African-American community,” he said. “It’s very common; so we need to make the population aware.”
For more information about the Marion Luckers Kidney Foundation, check online at www.mlkidney.org or call (267) 341-7184.
Organ donor advocate, Cynthia London is a member of Gift of Life, an organization that promotes organ donations. She is a donor-mother, a name used to refer to those who have made the decision to donate the organs of a child after their death.
London said after the death of her son, his organs were used to save the lives of six others.
“A man received his heart, two people received his kidneys, two people received a lung and one person received his liver,” she said.
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