This will be my 8th trip up the John Hancock Center for the RHAMC with my team named Kari’s Klimbers. I’ve had amazing teams, and by the end of this climb my teams will have raised over $200,000.00 to help people breathe. I’ve had incredible climbers, and support from so many generous people.

The reason I can climb 94 floors is in the picture I’m holding. In March 2000, in Iowa, when Kari was 17-years-old, she told her family how strongly she felt about organ donation. Twice. A month later, she passed away and her family honored her wishes.

I was in Chicago. My lungs were failing and I was dying after struggling for 40 years with cystic fibrosis. This beautiful girl from Iowa came into my life in April, 2000. I breathe with Kari’s lungs. She is on my mind and in my heart always.

Among my amazing climbers, for the past five years, several of Kari’s friends and volleyball teammates have come out from Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois to climb with me – in memory of their friend, and to honor the gifts she gave, and the person she was. Can you imagine what I feel like when I’m around them?

This will be my 10th year with her beautiful lungs. I do this to honor Kari and her family – and to honor the precious friends who surrounded her and loved her, and who she loved. I do this in hopes that others will recognize how important being an organ donor truly is, and will decide to someday become someone’s hero, like Kari is mine. And I do this to honor anyone who struggles with lung disease, like I did, in hopes they can someday feel like I feel.

If you have a couple of bucks to pledge me, or someone on my teams – it’s greatly appreciated! But more than anything, I want you to know about the girl who saved my life. And like her, please think about organ donation – sign your registry, and tell your family how you feel. I know a beautiful girl from Iowa who knew how she felt and she told her family. I think about her every single day.

Love, Steve

You can read a little more about her at:

www.ClimbingForKari.org