A Statement from EMC Founder, Christy Turlington Burns

While we might not be able to lace up our sneakers this Sunday and run the distance to honor your donations, we can come together as a community and still make a big difference.

Now that the news is final — The Marathon is cancelled — I want to reach out and tell you what this decision means to those of us running for Every Mother Counts and for you, our friends and supporters. With so much at stake in our dear city, we understand the Mayor’s decision and support him 100%. Our hearts go out to all the families so deeply impacted by tragedy in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. With that held in our hearts, we’re also disappointed because, like thousands of other marathoners, we’re 100% committed to the cause we’ve been running for. We know how disappointed some of us are and the distances and sacrifices involved. This week has been a rollercoaster and we’re not sure when this ride is going to end. We know, however, we’re eternally grateful for your generosity and ongoing support. While we might not be able to lace up our sneakers this Sunday and run the distance to honor your donations, we can come together as a community and still make a big difference. And I can share what this week’s been like for Team-EMC and me.

As a New Yorker, this week’s events have been very hard to watch unfold, especially after being stuck outside of NYC since before Sandy hit to screen No Woman, No Cry, the documentary film I made about barriers millions of pregnant girls and women face around the world. I flew out of Newark on Sunday with my two co-producers, Dallas and Clancy, who are friends as well as teammates. We felt it was important to screen the film in Georgia, statistically the second worst place to have a baby in the US, the week prior to the election. We returned home to NYC yesterday afternoon after driving 800 miles from Savannah.

Home meant reuniting with our families and loved ones living downtown without power, but also with the rest of our teammates, close friends we’ve been training with for months in preparation for the ING NYC Marathon. Our goal in running together as Team-EMC was to raise awareness about our efforts to improve maternal health globally. Hundreds of thousands of mothers die every year from conditions related to pregnancy and childbirth. Each one of those deaths represents a disaster and a mother who will never reunite with her family.

When we say “globally” — we truly mean it. There are vulnerable pregnant women just about everywhere all the time. That’s the nature of pregnancy and motherhood. Yes, the majority of maternal deaths do take place in developing countries, some of which are far away, but other places like Haiti, are also very close and were also ravaged by the storm. Of course, we have vulnerable pregnant women living here in NY, which ranks as the fifth worst state for maternal mortality. And extreme circumstances like storms only exacerbate things for vulnerable people.

We ran our first marathon last year to highlight one of the greatest barriers women face trying to access maternity healthcare — distance. The marathon has become symbolic for us as an advocacy organization that focuses on the challenges and solutions around the solvable crisis of maternal mortality. The distances we run, 26.2 miles and 5K, equal distances laboring women walk while in labor. It’s not uncommon for women to travel 26.2 miles to access emergency obstetric care. The shortest distance she might walk to reach basic health care is 5K. Our team significantly grew this year because our reason for running resonated with so many others.

That’s where some of our disappointment rests now that the Marathon is cancelled. People don’t run marathons just for themselves. Last year they ran for 210 different charities and raised more than $34 million. Many of those dollars are funneled directly into charities that serve the people and Burroughs hardest hit by Sandy.

When Sandy hit, we didn’t know how badly the city and its Burroughs would be impacted. When we got the news earlier this week that the marathon would go on as scheduled we imagined it would bring people together and we supported that idea. The marathon has an incredible uniting force under normal circumstances. We hoped the power of bringing so many communities together would further unite us. Now that the Marathon is cancelled, New Yorkers and citizens from all over the world will find another magnet to inspire the work we’ll need to do to rebuild and restore in our immediate future. This city has been through a lot together. These five Burroughs together make this city what it is and all of us who choose to live here are resilient. Those who traveled here despite these barriers are also resilient. Now that we know we will not run, we’re inspired to find other empowering outlets to honor your generosity, raise awareness about the work Every Mother Counts does and pull our community back together.

What’s really been amazing is the outpouring of support we’re receiving from people all over the country asking how they can help. Even though we can’t run on Sunday alongside 47,000 world citizens, we’re keeping that spirit of community and service in mind and putting it into action to honor your continued support of EMC and to help support our city’s recovery. We’re still fleshing out the details, but here’s the plan so far:

· The fact remains that we’ve still raised precious resources for maternal health and we will still be helping women get the care they need. We’re very proud of that. Even though the race is cancelled, our work is just beginning and every dollar will be well spent.

· We encourage people outside NYC to still run or walk their 5ks and somemembers of team EMC will be running their 26.2 miles on our behalf in othercities.

· We’re organizing a volunteer opportunity for NY Team-EMC folks to take place this Sunday. We want to take the time we wouldhave dedicated to the race and give back.

Thank you all so much for everything. We have accomplished a tremendous amount. We’re so grateful for your support. The race to save mothers’ lives all over the world is still on — for now it just looks different.