My awesome friend Rachel Smith works for the United Nations Foundation's Nothing But Nets Campaign and approached me about running in one of their slots for the Boston Marathon.  I had just signed up for the lottery for the NYC marathon in November, but I had not planned on running anything so quickly.  Luckily, I have been putting in some mileage, but more than anything I knew that I could not pass up this opportunity to represent such a great campaign while realizing a dream to run Boston. 

Nothing But Nets is a truly amazing campaign that is really doing great things.  Having traveled to Africa last year, I can appreciate the need for bed nets in these malaria stricken areas. 

Here are some more facts about Malaria:

Every 60 seconds a child dies from malaria—a disease spread

by a single mosquito bite.

• There are more than 200 million cases of malaria each year, and more

than 600,000 of those infected die from the disease, mostly in Africa.

• Children under five are at greatest risk—accounting for more than 90

percent of deaths from malaria.

• The World Health Organization reports that half of all families in sub-

Saharan Africa have at least one bed net, and malaria rates have

plummeted by more than a third in the past decade. 

Here are some facts about bed nets:

96 percent of people with access to a bed net use it.

• Bed nets can reduce malaria transmissions by 90 percent in areas with

high coverage rates.

Bed nets work in two ways: 1) they stop mosquitoes from biting at

night and spreading the disease, and 2) the insecticide on the net kills

the mosquitoes when they land, preventing them from flying on to find

their next victim. 

Here is how Nothing But Nets is helping:

It’s easy to help. $10 can send a life-saving bed net to protect

a family in Africa.

Malaria rates are dropping across Africa because of the hundreds of

thousands of supporters who have joined the movement to end malaria

—if we keep up this momentum we can end malaria in this generation.

Nothing But Nets and its supporters—from students to CEOs—have

raised nearly $40 million to distribute more than 6 million nets through

UN partners.

Since the UN Foundation created Nothing But Nets in 2006, supporters

and partners around the world have joined the movement to end

malaria, including the National Basketball Association’s NBA Cares,

The people of The United Methodist Church, Boy Scouts of America,

American Idol, Junior Chamber International, ExxonMobil, Major

League Soccer’s MLS W.O.R.K.S., Orkin, Inc., Union For Reform Judaism,

and Usher’s New Look Foundation.