Family finds strength and purpose fighting for a better, safer world (original) (raw)

Michael and Bekki Haggard started their family foundation to raise awareness for Polycystic Kidney Disease, pool safety, youth mentorship and the gun violence epidemic. Coral Gables Community Foundation

It is a gift to learn about a person’s journey to keep doing good for others despite their own heavy personal challenges.

For attorney Michael Haggard, community philanthropy includes fighting for pool safety and against gun violence, and supporting youth mentorship.

He also works to raise awareness and find a cure for Polycystic Kidney Disease. The disease required him to undergo a kidney transplant, and it has deeply affected Haggard’s family.

Yet he meets the obstacles and perseveres through The Haggard Law Firm, and the new Bekki and Michael Haggard Family Foundation administered by the Coral Gables Community Foundation.

“The most important thing to me is the kidney issue,” Haggard said. He was diagnosed with PKD when he was much younger.

“I had declining kidney function. You look at your labs, have a good diet, but you know that, at some time, it’s going to happen.” He was lucky.

His brother-in-law, Allen Buckhalt, turned out to be a match, and in 2016 Haggard underwent a kidney transplant at Tampa General Hospital. Both continue to do well today, but the experience showed Haggard that the transplant process needs work.

PKD is progressive. Patients can feel fine for years, possibly decades, after diagnosis, but the genetic disease adds an extra layer of anxiety for a family. With about 600,000 cases in the U.S., it isn’t rare, but people still lack awareness.

“Both my children have a chance of getting the disease,” he said. “Just as important, I’ve met hundreds of families that have been absolutely devastated by polycystic kidney disease.

“When I got transplanted, we realized there’s not enough support for living donors. They are so important for a million reasons,” he said. That realization led to the Haggard Family Foundation’s work.

Registering living donors means more options for transplant matches and allows patients to schedule surgery as opposed to waiting for an available kidney from a terminal patient donor. The Haggard Family Foundation funds a transplant coordinator at TGH who works with families and patients. Living donor registrations doubled at the hospital in the first year of the program.

“Mike and I have always wanted to create a vehicle to give back to our local community as well as to support those causes that are meaningful to us and our family. This family foundation will do just that,” said his wife, Bekki Haggard.

They also host PKD Casino For A Cure, a yearly event at which guests try their luck at the game tables. More than $1.5 million has been raised to support PKD Foundation research. He is on the organization’s Board of Directors.

Haggard is also devoted to fighting against gun violence and battling for safer pools through his firm’s work.

“I believe that the civil justice system’s ultimate role is to make society safer,” Haggard said. “Without the civil justice system we’d still have exploding Pintos. We would still have hotel keys that have your room number on it. We wouldn’t have seatbelts or airbags. So that’s the true goal of the civil justice system.”

His law firm and foundation support organizations like GIFFORDS, Brady and others focused on what Haggard calls the “epidemic of gun violence.”

He calls gun violence a uniquely American phenomenon and has seen how it works its way into every facet of life. Haggard spent years coaching youth football teams.

“You would be at practice one night and someone’s cousin was shot. Their brother was shot. Not only is it about guns and violence, but it’s also about giving opportunities to kids,” he said. “We have less than five percent of the world’s population, and we have more than 95% of gun violence deaths and injuries.”

He also represented the family of Virginia Graeme Baker, granddaughter of former Secretary of State Jim Baker. Graeme, a 7-year-old girl, drowned in 2002 after she was trapped underwater by a faulty drain cover in a hot tub.

After seeing through the civil case, Haggard worked with the Bakers to help pass the Virginia Graeme Baker Pool and Spa Safety Act, signed into law in 2007. Countless lives have been saved since, and work continues on pool safety through the firm and the foundation.

Bekki and Michael Haggard are fueled by “the inspiration of families who push through after gun violence or drowning has devastated their lives, PKD patients holding their heads high, and living donors dedicated to a self-sacrifice for the life of another.”

“We are committed to tough causes but find strength and purpose in knowing we can and will make a difference,” said Bekki Haggard.

The Coral Gables Community Foundation has inspired impactful philanthropy for 33 years. More at www.gablesfoundation.org.

A herd of 100 life-sized artisan elephants can be viewed on the sands of Miami Beach at the 36th Street entrance. LEE SMITH

100 ELEPHANTS ON THE SAND

This public art installation will stop you in your tracks. The Great Elephant Migration, a global fundraising adventure, arrived in Miami Beach Nov. 24. It is free to visit until Dec. 8 near the 36th Street entrance.

The life-sized Indian elephants were created by The Real Elephant Collective, a community of 200 Indigenous artisans from the Betta Kurumba, Paniya, Kattunayakan and Soliga communities of India’s Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve, Tamil Nadu.

An international collaboration between Indigenous artisans, contemporary artists and cultural institutions, the project “supports Indigenous-led conservation efforts and inspires peaceful human and animal coexistence by migrating 100 artisan-made elephant sculptures across the country.”

Each elephant was crafted with dried Lantana camara wrapped around a steel rebar frame, and finished with a protective tung oil coating to ensure outdoor durability and beauty.

Lantana camara is one of the world’s top invasive weeds, and it encroaches on more than 40 percent of India’s protected areas.

To raise funds, the elephants are for sale in four sizes. Organizers said they can make themselves at home in gardens, business frontages, estates and schools. More at www.thegreatelephantmigration.org

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