Tutus For Tanner Walk At BlogHer ’10

Catherine Connors (@herbadmother) of Her Bad Mother‘s nephew Tanner has Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a muscle degeneration disease that is terminal. His family’s wish is to make sure he can spend the rest of his time at home instead of a hospital, but in order to make that happen their basement needs renovating to accomodate his needs.

Watch video of the story and walk below:

The 5K at BlogHer ’10 unofficially became a run for Tanner when Black Hockey Jesus decided to run as many 5Ks as he could to raise money for the family. To date, 85 contributors pledged over $2,500.

Then Scott Stratten (@UnMarketing), a fellow Canadian and friend of Connors, launched the #tutusfortanner Tweet-a-Thon with a goal of $25,000 – a feat that was accomplished in 30 hours. In fact, to date 663 contributors have given $28,606.28 in support of the family’s renovation. Any extra money raised beyond the cost of the remodel will go to an organization for research and awareness of muscular dystrophy.

The 5K run/walk took place on Friday, August 6 at BlogHer ’10 in New York City where participants dressed up in tutus and hit the city and Central Park to show their love and support.

In the 48 hours leading up to the event chaos broke out when Tanner’s custom $15,000 wheelchair was broken en route thanks to a shoddy storage attempt by Air Canada (@AirCanada), the airline the family used to get to BlogHer ’10.

Connors tweeted about the broken wheelchair and due to her network the story spread far and wide, attracting international media outlets interested in covering the story. Her phone has been ringing off the hook with reporters vying for answers to questions about the Air Canada incident and how she used social media to get them to respond.

After press picked up the story Air Canada stepped up to rectify the situation by providing Tanner with a more suitable wheelchair, since they had initially given him a manual chair that did not suit his physical needs and created a significant amount of discomfort. The airline has now pledged to donate to the renovation and to make his top wish come true – a trip with his cousins to Disney.

For more information about Tanner’s story and how to get involved visit herbadmother.com.