James Boudreau is alive.
The Buchholz High School senior was born about a month early and escaped with only allergies and asthma.
He was not one of the nearly 1.2 million babies who die each year from being born prematurely.
Boudreau was, however, one of nearly 6,000 participants in Saturday’s March for Babies, a fundraiser dedicated to giving aid to the families of premature infants and funding neonatal research.
Event organizers estimated that the event raised about $815,000, although exact figures will not be known for several months, said Betsy Trent, the executive director of the March of Dimes North Central Florida division.
Participants in the 8.5-mile march, which started and finished at Westwood Middle School in northwest Gainesville, were greeted by a throng of cheering volunteers who handed them stickers and offered high fives.
While some participants finished in less than an hour, some marchers took more than four hours to walk all the way around.
Upon finishing, some marchers iced and rubbed down their legs, while others collapsed and took naps in the school yard grass.
Although rain was expected for part of the day, Trent said the marchers experienced sunny skies throughout the morning, ideal weather for a high turnout.
“It was an outstanding showing of people all throughout the community,” she said.
And it was this commitment throughout the community that energized the march.
Joel Herron, who works for the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office, raised money by purchasing $40 worth of sodas and selling them at his office.
After two weeks of buying and selling beverages and pizza, he had turned the $40 into more than $400, all of which he gave to the March of Dimes.
Overall, the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office raised about $3,000.
The top three fundraisers were Publix, Walmart and Shands hospitals, respectively.
The 12 Publix supermarkets in Gainesville are projected to have raised about $80,000 collectively, according to Rob Chapman, the local Publix district manager.
In the past six months, several Gainesville high schools pooled their resources together to raise about $61,000 for the March of Dimes, Boudreau said.
The schools, collectively known as Chain Reaction, were the fourth-highest fundraisers.
“I’m walking for myself and all premature babies,” said Boudreau, who has worked for Chain Reaction for the past two years.
“I don’t want any parents to go through what my parents went through.”
The next local March for Babies will take place on Nov. 14. It will be five miles long and will begin at Turlington Hall.
