One Step at a Time

For eight months, every day has been a “putting one foot in front of the other” moment for the families of the 27 Camp Mystic girls who lost their lives in the July 4th Hill Country floods. Since that day, friends and strangers alike have felt helpless as so many of us have wanted to do something to make things better, but just haven’t known how. January’s Chevron Houston Marathon weekend presented an opportunity people had been looking for.

Just a few weeks after the tragedy, longtime friends Lexie Boudreaux and Annie McQueen sprang into action. Lexie, a stager and corporate housing realtor, and Annie, a writer for The Buzz, always run into each other at the start of the Aramco Houston Half Marathon. Lexie says, “I texted Annie and said, ‘Let’s run for the girls.’ I knew she would be up for it.”

Supporters cheer for the runners. Funds raised will go toward the Heaven’s 27 Foundation, which will divide donations among each girl's memorial fund. Beneficiaries encompass a range of causes, including special education, homelessness, and animal shelters.

One thing led to another, and before they knew it, Lexie and Annie had formed an Instagram page for Team 27, named for Heaven’s 27, the collective name for the girls who were lost. It grew overnight. People quickly came forward to join the team and offer support. In October, a training event for Team 27 at Eastern Glades in Memorial Park drew runners and volunteers, including avid marathoners Sara Hudgens, a teacher and cross-country coach at The Kinkaid School, and Kinkaid mom-of-two Whitney Hinton. Many immediately offered to help. 

Ryan DeWitt’s daughter Molly is one of the Heaven’s 27. Soon after Team 27’s Instagram page went live, he found it. “Our Heaven's 27 group is cautiously optimistic,” Ryan said. The group assumes good intentions, but Ryan says they verify everything. “So, when I saw Team 27 on Instagram, I was like This is really nice, and thank you for thinking of our girls, but I needed to know who was behind it. When I found out it was Annie and Lexie, immediately I was like Oh this is awesome.” Annie’s daughter Georgia and Molly were buddies and neighbors, and Lexie’s family and the DeWitts are old friends.

Lexie Boudreaux runs the Aramco Houston Half Marathon

Ryan, a vice president with Sysco foodservice, is a self-described “endurance nut” who has completed two full and three half Ironman races (a 2.4-mile swim followed by a 112-mile bike, followed by a marathon). The DeWitts – Ryan, his wife Elizabeth, owner of Elizabeth Garrett Interiors, and their daughters Annie and Molly – would turn the races into family vacations. Since July 4th, Ryan has pledged to complete all seven of the world’s major marathons: Berlin, Boston, Chicago, London, New York City, and Tokyo. (He completed Chicago in October, with two good friends, Joel Gittemeier and Adam Day, by his side running as Molly’s Marathoners.)

With that experience, Ryan stepped in to help, connecting Annie and Lexie with the fundraising platform Haku and the running apparel company rabbit, who designed shirts for the team of around 250 runners and walkers. “Ryan had the vision to be official,” Annie says.

The Welker family – Graham, McKenzie, Hannah, and Jennifer (far right) support their dad and husband Ellis and brother and son Noah after their run.

Soon, friends and strangers were finding out about Team 27. Ashley and Chip Cavanaugh saw the page on social media and signed up to run the half together. “I know several of the moms and aunts from college, through UT or Theta or Hardin House,” Ashley says, noting that her 9-year-old daughter Greer was attending her first summer at Camp Longhorn during the flood. “They got out July 5th,” Ashley says. 

Chip, who is in sales, has run some 18 half marathons, and Ashley had run a few but had stopped in favor of balancing a law career with being mom to two young daughters. “If I was ever going to run again, I couldn’t think of a better reason than to support these families,” she says. “I signed up within days of hearing about the team.” 

Team 27 runners Kaitlin Yardley, Natalie Landry, Jen Hodge, Alyssa Bublewicz, Julie Bertillion, Leah Rausch, Annie McQueen, and Lexie Boudreaux gather for a pre-race photo.

Whitney Burns works full-time in commercial real estate at Hines and is raising two young boys. She is lifelong friends with Jennie Getten (Ellen’s mom), Patricia Bellows (Margaret’s mom), and Ellen Sheedy (Margaret’s mom). Whitney ran a full marathon in 2022, running a couple of halves in preparation. “I trained really hard for that, which takes a lot of work, and I already work a lot. It wasn’t something I was going to repeat. But when I heard this was getting put together, it was a no-brainer.

“There’s only so much you can do [for the families]. You can surround them with love, deliver meals, pick up groceries. But you’re grasping at straws. There’s nothing that makes it better. So, I said, How can I help? What can I do? Put me to work.” She organized marathon shirt orders and pickups, helped with fundraising events like a sold-out $100-a-mat Pilates class, and organized parking in one of Hines’ downtown buildings. And she started training. “Every training run was a chance to think about the girls, think about their families.”

Team 27 runners gather under the “H” banner at George R. Brown Convention Center the morning of the Chevron Houston Marathon and the Aramco Houston Half Marathon

Jenn Welker says of the families, “There were so many connections, so many ties running deep. But even people who didn’t know anyone personally were deeply affected.” There were nine Houston campers, plus two counselors, lost. Through her store Golden Thread, Jenn created the Team 27 collection – headbands, hats, scrunchies, bracelets, and shirts for supporters to wear along the racecourse and beyond – with proceeds going to the Heaven’s 27 Foundation. 

As the friends and volunteers and supporters prepped for the race, the Heaven’s 27 families came together in Houston the weekend of January 11, starting with a Friday dinner hosted by Mystic counselor Katherine Ferruzzo’s family. Then there was the We Are Houston 5K on Saturday morning, in which many siblings and friends ran, followed by the marathon Sunday morning, which began at 6:27 a.m. with a prayer led by Ryan inside the George R. Brown Convention Center. The team met under the “H” banner.  

“There were 27s everywhere that weekend,” Annie says. “We reached our goal of $270,000 on the day of the 27th week since the flood. The out-of-towners were put on the 27th floor of the Marriott Marquis.”

Matthew Childress ran the 2026 half marathon. His daughter Chloe, a Camp Mystic counselor, lost her life in the flood. The half happened to mark Matthew’s 27th career race. Here, he is wearing Chloe's headband, which she had worn when they ran the 2025 half together.

Camp Mystic counselor Chloe Childress, one of the 27 whose lives were lost in the flood, ran alongside her father, Matthew, in the 2025 Aramco Houston Half Marathon. This year, Matthew returned to the Aramco Houston Half Marathon on his own. He wore the headband that daughter Chloe had worn when they ran the 2025 half together. The 2026 race happened to mark his 27th career race. 

The morning, Whitney says, felt spiritual. “The whole time, I thought about the girls and their sweet little lives. It was very emotional.”

“No dry eyes,” Annie says.

Annie, Elizabeth, Ryan, and Bear DeWitt get ready for the marathon weekend.

At almost every half-mile marker, people were set up with signs, cheering. “The whole city knew who Team 27 was and who the girls were,” Lexie says. 

Volunteer Katie Daily organized an official cheer station for the full marathon, complete with a balloon arch and her husband dressed up as Elvis. Another large group gathered on Kirby and Westheimer, supporting the half-marathoners. After the race, everyone gathered at sports bar Wakefield Crowbar to celebrate the run and $345,000 raised. In all, about 30 volunteers made the weekend happen. 

“There were moms running who had never run a 5K, surrounded by entourages of friends,” Annie says.

Whitney says, “I have known Jennie [Getten, Ellen’s mom] for 30 years, and I would never say she was a runner. But she ran the entire 13 miles nonstop. There was just a lot of love and a lot of energy that carried everyone through.”

“The coolest part was seeing people with Team 27 signs, and I would think I knew who they were, but 75 percent of them I didn’t even know,” Ryan says. “It just reemphasized the amazing community we have. Most importantly, it made clear that our girls aren’t going anywhere.”

Ryan Burns and his wife Whitney (pictured, with their sons William and Jack) after she completes the half marathon.

Tania Hernandez, who knows the Landry family – who lost Lainey – through St. Michael’s Catholic School, actually ran alone in Memorial Park the weekend prior to the marathon to honor the girls. Tania’s children had an out-of-state swim meet during the marathon, but she still wanted to participate. “When the actual marathon happened,” she says, “people were sending pictures and videos. You could feel the atmosphere even from a distance.”

“Everyone had a great day,” Lexie says. “Even if they were smiling just in that moment, that was good.”

Ashley and Chip Cavanaugh ran the half marathon.

Jenn says, “It’s been the most heartbreaking year. It wrecked our community, and it will never be the same. It’s unthinkable, but something steady continues to rise.”

That something is support for the Heaven’s 27 families. “We just need to remember that they need our love and support today, tomorrow, 10, 20 years from now,” Whitney says. “We will keep lifting them up.”

Team 27 is already organized for the Austin, Fort Worth, Dallas, and San Antonio marathons. All money raised will go toward the Heaven’s 27 Foundation, which will divide donations among the individual legacy funds established to honor each of the girls who died. Beneficiaries run the gamut from special education to homelessness to animal shelters. Already, the girls have made a tremendous impact: Their parents led the fight to pass the Heaven’s 27 Camp Safety Act, which is the first comprehensive bill that holds camps to strict guidelines protecting campers in their care. 

Heaven's 27

“We’re going to be doing this for a long time,” Ryan says. “These little girls have reached more lives in the past eight months than most will reach in their whole lives. They are changing the world every day, and their light is shining even brighter than it did when they were here.”

Follow Team 27 HTX on Instagram. Join Team 27's Family Fun Run Sat., April 11 at Houston Sports Park. To join the team for the 2027 Houston Marathon, go to haku.ly/team27tx. There, you’ll also find links to the pages for Austin, Fort Worth, and San Antonio. To donate directly to the Heaven’s 27 Fund, go to Heavens27.org.