WalkAmerica - 2001

Every year since the mid-1990s, young March of Dimes ambassadors Katie and Danny Blacker of Livonia have made the pilgrimage - with their parents - to WalkAmerica.

Both born prematurely but now the picture of health, they participate in the Preemie Stars walk team - captained by their mom, Laurie Blacker - to raise money to help promote healthy babies and prenatal care.

This spring is no different. The Blackers will walk on Saturday, April 28, from the Plymouth WalkAmerica site. Nearly 20 families in the Preemie Stars are expected to make the eight-mile trek through downtown Plymouth.

"It's a good way to give something back," Laurie said. "It sounds clichéd, but in this case it happens to be true."

Of course, Laurie and her husband, David Blacker, would like to see many more families with preemies raising money and doing the walk. They are welcome to step forward, literally.

"It's hard to get the word out there that we exist," Laurie said. "We picked up a couple interested people along the walk route last year, but it's hard to get recruits."

According to Blacker, the Preemie Stars is "the only team that's made up of beneficiaries of the March of Dimes. It's the only preemie walk team."

Many walk teams come together as corporate entities, such as Kmart or Kroger. But, Blacker said, with the Preemie Stars it is "much more personal."

March of Dimes-financed research has helped promote breakthroughs in medicine that in the last decade or so have benefited premature babies such as Katie and Danny, now ages 10 and 7, respectively.

In the "Club Preemie" chapter of a 1999 book on extreme prematurity by Detroit-area author Tim Smith (a reporter with the Observer & Eccentric Newspapers), Laurie Blacker reflected on how important it was for the March of Dimes to help pay for the research that led to a surfactant used to aid lung development.

"Who knows if Katie, especially, would be alive today if it wasn't for stuff like surfactant," she said.
The Blackers and Preemie Stars team are featured in Smith's book Miracle Birth Stories of Very Premature Babies - Little Thumbs Up!

The author's daughter, Elizabeth, is another member of the Preemie Stars team. She was born at just 1 lb., 14 oz. in November 1994 and spent nearly four months in the Beaumont Hospital neonatal intensive care unit. Today, like Katie and Danny, she is a happy, healthy child.

Courtesy of Home Town Communications Network