About Us

Every 30 minutes a child is born who will develop Mitochondrial Disease by the age of 10. Payton's Race for a Cure was founded on the hope of raising awareness and funds to help find a cure. Payton, the poster child for this event, is a little girl who suffers from Mitochondrial Disease. She is unable to walk and talk. The disease has taken a drastic toll on her developmental state and has left her medically fragile for the rest of her life. Since there is no cure for the disease what lies in the future is a mystery. Payton, unfortunately, is one of many who suffer daily from this disease.

Given the circumstances Payton's family, friends and many perfect strangers, decided to stand up and fight this horrendous monster called Mitochondrial Disease. Payton's Race for a Cure first took place on September 12, 2009. We offered a huge variety of family friendly activities such as charity dirt bike and quad races, a six band concert series, children's games, clowns, the fun filled Griff from the Grand Rapids Griffins, raffles, concessions, and much, much more. Considering the AWESOME turn out we had Payton's Race for a Cure was able to raise $10,000 to be donated to the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation!! Receiving phenomenal feedback the group has decided to make this an annual event!

Mission Statement

Payton’s Race for a Cure is a non-profit organization that’s mission is to help promote awareness and research through fundraising.  All proceeds are donated directly to the Mitochondrial Community through two organizations, Mito Action (www.mitoaction.org) and the United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation (www.umdf.org.)  Both Mito Action and UMDF are non-profit organizations that share the common mission of furthering awareness and research for Mitochondrial Disease.