Darius Goes West comes to Columbia

For those of you who don't know anything about my recent adventure---here it is in a nutshell. Last year I saw this documentary called "Darius Goes West" that had come to the Nickelodeon theater. It is an amazing award-winning film about a 15-year old boy named Darius Weems living with Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy. Darius' older brother Mario had recently passed away from Duchenne's and Mario's friends had promised him they would take care of Darius. Well take care of him they did!! They made a film about a trip they took with Darius in an RV with the ultimate goal of getting his wheelchair pimped on the MTV show "Pimp My Ride". They left their hometown of Athens, GA, and along the way to LA they took Darius to the ocean for the first time, the Grand Canyon, and checked out many major tourist attractions to see if they were wheelchair accessible.
Anyhoo---I saw this movie and was blown away by it. Looking on their website, I saw that you could contact Darius and the crew and get them to possibly come to your city to screen the movie and be available for questions. I contacted the Darius crew and then I wrote a proposal to the hospital I work for---Palmetto Health---to see if they would sponsor the movie. My boss at the Medically Fragile Children's Program was behind me on this and helped out significantly. It all fell into place and Darius and the crew pulled into Columbia this week to show the movie. We ended up having about 100 people attend---and the crew sold 60 DVD's and a lot of t-shirts. Each DVD is $20, and $17 of it goes to Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy research. Darius and his friends are taking a year off from their lives to travel the US and their goal is to sell 1 million DVD's. I would let you borrow my DVD if you would like---but I would much rather you buy one and help out this cause!!!!!
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE at least go to the website: www.dariusgoeswest.org.
Darius is an amazing young man, and he has amazing friends. You will be mesmerized too like I was.

My friend Mike, a.k.a. Richie the Raccoon helped out sooooo much with the Darius event. Here he is striking a pose with Robino.

The Darius Goes West RV has been stepped up a notch since the one they traveled in while filming the documentary. Even still----11 young men travel in this. That's a lot.

Here is Darius and the whole crew. Now these are twenty-something year old boys who are very serious about this cause. It is inspiring to see that.

Here I am with the big man himself---Darius. I knew there was something special about him from watching the movie---but meeting him in person was something else. He has this aura about him that is amazing. Darius is a young man who knows he is going to die---and has more life in him that almost anyone I have ever met. He is wise beyond his years. I will never forget that I had this opportunity to meet him and be able to share this movie with others. It was such a special day.