Petro’s Fight Raising Awareness on Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

 

A Brooklyn College graduate in business management, Edgar Alacan is the founder of Jets.com. He started the company as a three-person outfit in 2008 and has since steered the sales department to 50 plus employees and $40 million in annual sales. Alongside work, Edgar Alacan is passionate about community involvement and philanthropy and donates to various organizations, including Petro’s Fight.

The parents of Pietro Scarso, a 3-year-old boy diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular dystrophy, established Pietro’s Fight in 2012 to raise awareness of the lethal disorder. The genetic disease, named after French neurologist Guillaume Benjamin Amand Duchenne, presents as alterations of the dystrophic protein responsible for keeping muscle cells intact, resulting in progressive muscle degeneration and wasting, often leading to death in the teenage years. The disorder affects six per 3500 newborns, primarily male. It is rare among females.

Conscious of the limited awareness and knowledge resources on the disorder, the organization also seeks to raise funds to research causative variables and explore treatment and early diagnosis studies. Depending solely on donations for funds, the organization organizes events and raffles. The latter typically feature high-cost items donated by global luxury brands, such as bags from Chanel, a mirror from the Alacan family, a Valentino Patent cross-body bag, and a bench from Gables, New York.