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As Kyle Stepp hiked up one of his legs during an interview with the Daily Lobo Wednesday, his pants revealed what appeared to be a regular, working leg.
“My whole left leg is fake on the inside,” he said. “They removed all my bone. My femur, my knee and my tibia is fake. They had to replace it with stainless steel.”
In his freshman year of high school, Stepp was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer. His experience with cancer inspired him to co-found the new organization, LoboTHON, which will be hosting events to donate money to the UNM Children’s Hospital.
“That’s the biggest reason why I helped start this organization,” he said. “I wouldn’t be alive without that hospital.”
LoboTHON will host its first event, a dodgeball tournament called Dodging for Kids, on Sunday. Participants will play in co-ed teams of six, and at least one team member has to be female. The event will take place from 1 to 5 p.m. at Johnson Center, and will cost $5 per player to participate.
Stepp said the funds collected from the event will go to the UNM Children’s Hospital.
“Our ultimate goal is that everything we raise goes directly to the children’s hospital,” he said. “We don’t want anything we raise to go to administrative costs.”
Participants in the tournament will also have the chance to meet some of the hospital’s children patients they will be helping, Stepp said.
“We’re going to have some of the kids there,” he said. “We’re going to have two families, two of the ‘miracle families.’ The cool thing is that you actually get to see where the money is going to, and you get to meet kids whose lives you’re making a difference in.”
The official LoboTHON goal is to raise $14,000 for the hospital, Stepp said. But he said he has his own goal.
“My personal goal is to raise one dollar for every single student on campus,” he said.
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Stepp said if LoboTHON achieved that goal, he would run about 13 miles, equating to “half a marathon,” to “prove the doctors wrong.”
The organization and its events are all run by students, Stepp said.
“You build everything from scratch,” he said. “You build your constitution, you build how you’re going to do your event, you build your annual operating plan.”
Mallory Paige, a fundraising chair for LoboTHON, said she helped figure out the logistics of organizing the event. She said she thinks the event is important because it will help spread the word to students about the purpose of her organization.
“I think it’s important because we’re trying to get people to understand what we’re doing,” she said.
Paige said it’s also important for people to appreciate how close the UNM Children’s Hospital is to campus.
Stepp said students should attend the event because it is an opportunity for students to make a difference close to home.
“UNM Children’s Hospital is the only level-one trauma center, the only hospital that treats kids with cancer, the only hospital that treats specialties in New Mexico, the only burn center, the only emergency room for pediatrics,” he said. “It’s the number one referral hospital in New Mexico.”
Stepp said this event is the “first of many” fundraisers that LoboTHON will present. He said the most notable event will be a dance marathon at the end of the year.
“The dance marathon is essentially a 13.1 hour marathon,” he said. “No sleeping, no sitting, no caffeine. You essentially experience what the kids go through in the hospital.”
Stepp said he encourages everyone to participate in the events because the children’s hospital affects everyone.
“Everyone knows someone under the age of 18,” he said. “And everyone knows someone who something has happened to. UNM Children’s Hospital has maybe saved their lives, or if anything happens, the children’s hospital will be there to save them.”
