Brotherly Love Update: One Man's Walk For CHOP Hits Milestone
By Ukee Washington
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- In February, Ukee Washington told you about a Montgomery County teacher who started walking around his Erdenheim neighborhood hoping to collect a few hundred dollars for CHOP. Those walks went a lot further than he ever dreamed.
I first met Paul D'Amico in the dead of winter. He started walking at night in December just to lose some weight. Then he found out a former student had cancer, "and I was saying, 'I wonder what I could do.' So I had this idea to walk, to do my walks, but go to people's houses and collect money for CHOP."
He told his Facebook friends: give me your address, and I'll walk to pick up your donation.
"And it started to get the ball rolling," Paul said in February. "So I set up a schedule for my first walk, which was to Oreland. It was a 9-mile total walk, and I raised over $1200 on like the first night."
Paul called it CHOP Around the Block. He kept walking. At every house, he took a selfie. The money kept coming in. The selfies multiplied. By the time our story aired, he had raised $17,000.
"And I only thought I'd raise a couple hundred bucks, get some teddy bears, and be done with it, you know?" he told Ukee in February.
"How far can you go with this?" Ukee asked.
"I don't know," Paul said.
Turned out $17,000 was just the start. The story spread all over the country. Donations came in through his CHOP fundraising site. Local businesses offered to throw parties to raise money.
"So I was like, ok, $20,000," Paul told Ukee. "Then people were like, no! You got $50,000! And in my mind, I'm like, there's no way I'll ever get to $50,000."
He did. A few weeks ago, Paul presented a check for $50,000 to CHOP for their Child Life Department. Elise Keels explained his money will go to entertain sick kids.
"Whether that's arts and crafts or having a LEGO kit to do while you're getting chemo, Paul's donation's going to directly to that," Elise said.
Paul summed it up: "Over 600 donors, 300-some selfies, money from all over the country, so it really turned into something pretty special."
Paulie's taking a break from walking. But he still has his CHOP donation website.
You can see Ukee's previous story about Paul, here.
