Brotherly Love: One Man's Walk For CHOP Around The Block

By Ukee Washington 

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- In December, a Montgomery County man did what a lot of people do around the new year. He resolved to walk every day. Then he had an idea, and it's going to make a big difference for kids at CHOP. Ukee Washington caught up with him in Erdenheim in this week's story of Brotherly Love.

"I started walking at night," said Paul D'Amico. A little snow can't slow down him down. He started walking to lose some weight and posted selfies of his progress on Facebook.

Around the same time, the Philadelphia school teacher ran into a former student who is battling cancer.

"And I was saying, 'I wonder what I could do,' so I had this idea to walk to do my walks, but go to people's houses and collect money for CHOP," Paul said.

On Facebook, he said If people wanted to donate, he'd walk to their house.

"And it started to get the ball rolling," Paul said. "So I set up a schedule for my first walk, which was to Oreland. It was a 9-mile total walk, and I raised over $1200 on like the first night."

Paul named his effort CHOP Around the Block. He kept walking, whether the weather was good or not, even in two feet of snow. The selfies stacked up, more than 130! The money kept coming in.

"It's an awesome thing, just the community coming together to raise money for CHOP," Erin May said.

A friend designed a t-shirt to sell, too.

"I was, like, amazed at how viral it has gone," Jaclyn Bradley said.

"We're over $13,400 in about a month's time," Paul told CBS3 anchor Ukee Washington.

"Whoa! That's amazing!" Ukee said.

Paul met with a representative of CHOP to let him know of his effort.

"I'm small potatoes probably, compared to if the Eagles were to donate or something," Paul said. "She goes, 'Yeah, but you're one man.' She goes, 'No one's ever done this.'"

"How far can you go with this?" Ukee asked.

"I don't know," Paul said.

"What would you like to see?" Ukee asked.

"It would be great if it exploded and turned into one of these things that happened every year," Paul said. "I've had people say 'Hey, I'll walk for you. I'll be a Paulie CHOP Around the Block.' That would be neat, too."

This week, Paul crossed the $17,000 mark.

If you don't live within walking distance of Paul, you can donate online through CHOP:

http://chop.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.personalCampaign&participantID=25142

https://www.facebook.com/paul.damico.7