'It's something Adelia would have loved'

Sep. 2—Fun Run prioritizes fun in raising money for the Adelia Dundas Foundation

On Oct. 5, the family of Adelia Dundas will hold the first ever Team Adelia 0.01K Fun Run at the Austin Eagles Club.

That's not a typo. The run will be just about 33 feet and Adelia's parents think their daughter, who passed away in 2021 due to a rare type of cancer, would have enjoyed the sound of it.

"It's something Adelia would have loved," her dad Christoph Dundas said. "She liked things that were funny. She liked dressing up funny. We wanted it to be something that anybody could do without any training."

The run is a fundraiser in support of the Adelia Dundas Foundation, a non-profit to help families whose own children are in the hospital.

Funds provided by the foundation help with things like groceries, bills, mortgages and more in an effort to support the family during difficult situations, like the kind the Dundas family went through when Adelia was hospitalized.

"We wanted something to be perpetual for Adelia," her mom Kelsey said. "Something that was given throughout time and that's what Adelia gave to us throughout her life is 10 beautiful years and we want it to flourish even longer.

Adelia was born with Aicardi Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder caused by a genetic deletion. It opened pathways to a variety of things such as vision and hearing problems, seizures and more, including the increased likelihood of cancer.

She was diagnosed with Aicardi not long after she was born, when doctors realized that Adelia had been born with an extra finger. This prompted doctors to look more closely at her genetics which led to the diagnosis.

However, both Christoph and Kelsey said that the lively little girl was rarely held back by her challenges. Instead, she quickly grew to do those things that many thought were not going to be possible.

"She could sing before she could talk," Kelsey said. "She loved to read, she loved music, loved to swim. One of her greatest life moments is winning a gold medal at the State Special Olympics. That was really cool."

"I think it was just her attitude toward life," Christoph said. "She would see somebody do something or want to do something and she would just go do it."

However, late in 2020, Adelia was diagnosed with myelodysplasia, a rare bone cancer in children that is only ever really seen in people over 80. The cancer was linked to her Aicardi Syndrome, but even this didn't slow Adelia down.

Her parents said she carried the same optimistic attitude with her, even after losing her hair to treatment.

"When she got cancer it was like, oh, one more thing," Christoph said. "She was always optimistic no matter how bad things were. When she lost her hair, she thought it was funny. She would laugh at having no hair."

Adelia would go on to receive a bone marrow transplant from her brother, Caleb, that was deemed a success.

However, the entire ordeal simply proved to be too much for Adelia, despite putting up a strong fight.

"It was just complications as a result of it that the rest of her body couldn't take the strain of the bone marrow transplant," Christoph said. "She held on for a long time."

In the days that followed Adelia's funeral, the family thought about what to do about the outpouring of support from family and friends who donated in Adelia's memory and through a GoFundMe page.

The thought of holding on to the money just didn't feel right to the couple.

"We decided pretty early on we wanted to give away that money to other families in need," Christoph said, adding that whatever they did it would be sustainable. "The more we thought about it, the more we didn't want just a one time thing really."

So the family formed the LLC and began helping families the way they had been helped. To date there have been five donations of varying amounts — four to southern Minnesota families for a mortgage payment and the fifth to an international family that needed an MRI for one child.

In determining who will receive the donation, Christoph and Kelsey and three other board members look over applications and make the decision based on really getting to know the family.

"We all meet in person or communicate via email and then review the application that people can have on our website and send it in to us" Kelsey said. "We decided, yes, this would be a benefit for this family. Explain your story, we want to know these families."

A doctor is also required to sign to ensure that there is a legitimate need.

However, as the time goes on, the money from Adelia's donations is starting to wane and thus, the idea for the October fundraiser was established in the hope that they can keep the giving going forward.

"People can crawl, walk, roll ... whatever you want to do," Kelsey said.

"We're going to make this as humorous as possible," Christoph added. "We're going to make a hydration station in case you need to stop for water. We're going to decorate the finish line."

The event will include gift bags for participants and there will be food available as well.

"We wanted our first event to be something that people could come to because it sounds fun and they would find out about the foundation," Kelsey said. "They wouldn't have to know who we are or what we do in order to have fun."

The run itself will go from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Eagles Club and while the day will be a fun way to raise money for a worthy cause, it will also be about remembering the light that Adelia was during her time on Earth and how others can be helped.

"When a family loses a kid, the last thing you want to do is think about how to pay for a funeral or how to pay for stuff at the hospital," Christoph said. "Our biggest part of the mission is helping parents."

"You couldn't be grumpy around Adelia," he added later. "That's just what her personality was."

To learn more about Adelia and the Dundas family, as well as the event itself, visit: https://www.teamadelia.com/

People can also donate on the site if they are unable to attend the Oct. 5 fundraiser.

"Adelia was such a light to so many people and we want to bring that to others just like she brought it to us," Kelsey said. "I think almost everybody knows a relative or a friend or has personal experience with a kid being sick. We just encourage them to reach out to us through the website or email and we can try and help."