Darius Goes West - One Year. One Million DVDs.

Quote of the Day: “I’m still healthy, and I’m still pushing it.”—Darius, to a Washington, DC crowd.

From Tennessee, DGW driver Daniel led us on the long trek to Washington, DC.

First up: a screening at E Street Cinema.

The screening, set up by members of crew-member Andrew’s extended family (and sponsored by Coca-Cola), was a blast.

We had a great chance to spend time with Callie Oettinger, DGW’s publicist. Callie does a lot for the cause on many different fronts.

In fact, while the Question-and-Answer session was going on, Callie even manned our manual credit card machine and made some DVD sales!

The E Street screening was one of DGW’s most successful in terms of DVD sales…

as the crowd was fantastic.

The thank you list for this screening is huge, so bear with us: thank you Madeline Louise Bethke (her choice for the full name and bold font), James, Max, Wendy, Barney, Steve, and John Bethke; Kathy, Philip, and Bernadette Yates; Margie and Steve Hackett; Kyle and Sean Tolbert; Mary-Lynn Skutely; and Frank Ros and Coke for sponsoring the theater. They used strength in numbers to put on a great screening.

The next morning, we went to a school visit at the alma mater of many of the Bethkes: St. Andrew Apostle School in nearby Silver Spring, Maryland.

Like Andrew said: “I think it’s really cool to be here, ’cause my mom went to school here!” When the crowd cheered, Andrew said: “Yay Mom!” which got another round of cheers.

The students at St. Andrew are awesome, and we had a great Q-and-A.

We were also treated to a special rap by St. Andrew’s very own, very talented Salt ‘N Pepper 2! The duo (otherwise known as Rachel and Lauren) performed awesome lyrics over Marc and Mark’s stylish beat-boxing.

Next, Sophia gave Darius a delicious cake. She made it herself!

Next, the students presented D with donations. Then they shared with Darius some of the ideas they were going to implement to keep helping the cause.

Students sharing their passion and drive about affecting Duchenne muscular dystrophy is the best gift any school can give D, and St. Andrew had it in droves.

They even had the focus and energy to all pose for this awesome picture taken by DGW still-photographer Kevin.

Thank you, St. Andrew!!

After the school visit, Kathy and co. treated Darius and the crew to an awesome brunch at Eggspectation. Props to manager Mark for hooking us up.

The Bethke-Yates-Tolbert family was fantastic to the crew during our visit to DC. They even put some of us up in their homes! Thanks guys!

Last during our DC stop was a screening at the American Medical Student Association conference that was going on that weekend. The screening was set up by Brian Hurley, National President of AMSA.

We had fun coordinating future events there, and we also got to see former DGW screening hosts Tim Campbell, and Julie Nusbaum, as well as former Athenian, Reesha Shah, who are all future doctors.

Darius and the crew aren’t doctors; there’s no way we can affect DMD through a microscope. So it was a treat to spend some time with folks who do have that chance.

Thanks Reesha, Tim, Julie, Brian, and everyone at AMSA!

Thank you, DC!

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23,119 DVDs sold!

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