Montco foundation raises $32,000 to help others in need

PLYMOUTH TOWNSHIP A 5K run and walk that honors those who lost their lives on 9/11, local first responders, and military veterans has raised $32,000 for the wife and children of a fallen Plymouth Township police officer and for the families of Montgomery County police and firefighters.

The Travis Manion Foundation and the Montgomery County District Attorney's Office announced the total last week. Half the amount went to the family of fallen Plymouth Township Officer Brad Fox, who also was a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq. The other half was given to a new nonprofit, the Montco Heroes Fund, which financially assists those who suffered a "tragedy on duty or in service of the people of Montgomery County," according to the group's founders, Sharon and Sean E. Cullen.

Manion, 26, grew up in Doylestown. He was a Marine on his second tour in Iraq when a sniper killed him while he was trying to rescue comrades wounded in an ambush.

The foundation sponsored 55 fund-raising races around the world this year, including in Afghanistan, Japan, and on Navy ships, Travis' sister Ryan Manion Borek of Doylestown said.

Their mother, Janet Manion, established the foundation shortly after Travis' death.

"We thought of it as giving people an opportunity to come out and be a part of something bigger than themselves, particularly in something whose proceeds would go back to families in their own hometown," Ryan Manion said Friday.

Fox, 34, was fatally shot in September 2012 by a man he was pursuing. He left behind a wife and two children, one of whom was born after Fox died.

- Carolyn Davis