Screening of Darius Goes West

The Shoshana S. Cardin School, in a cooperative project with Baltimore-area Jewish youth groups, will show the award winning documentary Darius Goes West: The Roll of His Life on Sunday, November 15 at Beth El Congregation’s Offit Auditorium in Baltimore.  Tickets are $5 and proceeds from the screening will be donated to Charley’s Fund for Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD) research.

Darius Goes West is a documentary based on the life of 15-year-old Darius Weems from Athens, Georgia, who was born with DMD, the most common fatal genetic disorder to affect children worldwide. In 2000, Darius watched his older brother Mario pass away from the same disease at age 19. Soon after, Darius lost use of the muscles in his legs and began using a wheelchair.  A group of Darius’s college-age friends felt there was no need for his quality of life to disintegrate along with his muscles so they decided to take Darius on a three-week, 7,000 mile cross-country journey to reach Los Angeles and convince MTV’s popular show, “Pimp My Ride,” to customize Darius’s wheelchair. Along the way, they evaluated wheelchair accessibility at many of America’s major tourist attractions and raised awareness of DMD by holding over a dozen press conferences.