In 2013, following the Boston Marathon bombing, Heather Abbott’s left leg was amputated. Then, in 2014, she went on to create the Heather Abbott Foundation, which provides grants to amputees for prosthetics that insurance will not cover.
On Monday, the foundation hosted its annual Boston Marathon Watch Party to cheer on the 11 people running for the foundation as part of Team “Limb-it-less.”
Abbot said this is the first time the foundation has been able to gather for Patriots’ Day in recent years.
“It’s really nice to be back,” Abbott said. “It’s a beautiful day. I couldn’t ask for a better one.”
The foundation provides the opportunity for runners to fundraise for the foundation. In return, HAF supplies them with a charity bib. Abbott said it feels “amazing” to have people run for her foundation.
“They start off with the goal in mind of running the marathon,” Abbott said. “But by the end, they always say this was such an incredible experience to get to know the foundation and all the beneficiaries and really have some meaning to our fundraising.”
Abbott said she enjoyed speaking with the watch party’s attendees, including supporters and beneficiaries of the foundation, friends and family of the foundation’s runners, new amputees and past runners.
“Everyone kind of gets connected to the foundation,” Abbott said.
Roseann Sdoia-Materia, who lost her right leg above the knee in the 2013 bombing, said that body image issues young women commonly face pose an extra challenge for young female amputees. She said she hopes Abbott keeps helping combat this with her foundation by providing a “quality of life that they deserve.”
“You want to feel pretty, you want to be accepted, and having an amputation is opposite of that,” Sdoia-Materia said.
Growing up near Boston, Sdoia-Materia said she would come into the city to watch the Boston Marathon.
“I’m not sure if I’ve ever really missed a year in my adult years,” Sdoia-Materia said. “It was my favorite day in the city.”
Sdoia-Materia felt mixed emotions upon attending the watch party.
“Coming back in this scenario has been difficult, but it’s also therapeutic,” Sdoia-Materia said. “I find joy in being here, being surrounded with friends and hopefully helping out this foundation that has done so much great things for people in our situation.”
Each year, the Boston Athletic Association gives everyone who was injured in the bombing a bib to run in the marathon or have someone run for them. Sdoia-Materia gives her bib to someone else and asks them to fundraise and run for HAF.
“I just feel that I’m doing something with what happened to me,” Sdoia-Materia said. “It’s important for me to give the bib to somebody who I know is going to fundraise so that Heather can continue her mission.”
For this year’s marathon, she gave her bib to Amy Dowe, her close friend of over 20 years. Dowe ran with a team for Sdoia-Materia in 2014 before Abbott created her foundation.
Running again this year, Dowe has raised over $7,000 for the foundation.
“I’m just so proud of her and thankful that she was willing to do this,” Sdoia-Materia said.
Kevin Horst, the director of HAF, creates the “marathon experience” for the runners, organizing brunches and Zoom calls so they can get to know each other and feel connected.
“The Heather Abbott Foundation really wants to work efficiently with the money that we raised, but we also want to make sure it’s a good marathon experience for our runners,” Horst said.
The HAF is full of volunteers who “do as much as [they] can for the cause,” he said.
“For us to do this work for the foundation, to truly and profoundly help someone live a fuller, richer, easier life, is wildly rewarding,” Horst said.
Abbott said she hopes to keep sending runners to the marathon in the future.
“As long as the BAA allows us invitationals, we’ll keep taking them and we’ll keep having a running team. It’s our best fundraiser from all angles,” Abbott said. “We’d love to keep doing it and we’d love to keep helping amputees.”
Donations can be made on the Heather Abbott Foundation website, Horst said.
“Every dollar counts, and we do everything that we can to help people,” Horst said.
