Cupid's Undie Run spreads the half-naked truth about Neurofibromatosis.

Yahoo

09-02-2025

No, your eyes aren't playing tricks on you. There really were a few dozen scantily-clad runners making their way down Division Street on Saturday afternoon.
The group was baring almost all for a good cause: Nashville's annual Cupid's Undie Run. The charity run supports people affected by Neurofibromatosis, also known as NF, which is a group of incurable genetic conditions that cause tumors to grow on nerves throughout the body.
Nashville is one of 30 cities across the U.S. that host an Undie Run each year. Collectively, those events have raised $24 million toward finding a cure for NF since the charitable organization was founded about 15 years ago. This year, Nashvillians raised more than $17,000 for the Children's Tumor Foundation, a nonprofit that drives NF research.
In Nashville, event director Jason Corbitt has volunteered to organize the run for the past four years or so. Corbitt got involved because of his nephew, who was diagnosed with NF. Corbitt said the purpose of the run is to draw attention to a disease that many aren't aware of, affecting one in about 2,500 births across the country.
NF manifests in ways such as "café-au-lait" skin spots, pigmented birthmarks that differ in color from surrounding skin, and tumors that can grow anywhere in the nervous system — including the brain and spinal cord.
Corbitt said it's a condition that can make it hard to feel comfortable in your own skin, which is why Undie Run participants don't mind letting the common nightmare scenario of showing up to an event in only your underwear play out in real life.
"To have someone who feels that way and being able to help them feel better about themselves, or even try to give them a glimmer of hope of finding a cure, it's something that has attracted me to do this for the past eight years, almost 10 years now," Corbitt said.
Nancy Reeves, 49, has lived with NF for her whole life. She was diagnosed in 1980 at age 4 and is the only member of her family with the disorder. At one point, doctors told Reeves' parents she wouldn't make it to 21.
Instead, she's far surpassed that prognosis and made a successful life for herself. She and her husband, Mike, have been married for about a year, and they combined to raise the most in donations as a team and the second- and third-most as individuals for this year's run.
Reeves said she has what some may consider a more "mild case" of NF, the most common of three main types called NF1. Like others with the disease, she has tumors, and her symptoms included learning disabilities that went undiagnosed until college.
But the other, less common, types of the disease — NF2 and "Schwannomatosis" — can come with much more severe symptoms, like tumors that aren't just painful or itchy but also tend to more frequently affect the nerves inside the skull and spine and can disrupt hearing, balance and control of facial muscles as a result.
"I think one hurdle is that it doesn't affect (two people) the same way," Reeves told The Tennessean. "Every case is different, so I don't think they can pinpoint 'This is what's going to fix everybody.'"
That makes raising awareness through events like the Undie Run all the more important. Reeves started out as a participant, then became a volunteer four years ago. Now, she coordinates decorations at the venue where participants hang out before and after the run.
Reeves has seen the event grow year over year in the decade since it began in Nashville, and she said along with that has come a larger group of participants who are learning about NF for the first time.
"I've met people today that are like, 'Oh, my god, thank you for telling me your story,'" Reeves said.
It's a far cry from where research stood on the disease back in the 1980s, when Reeves was diagnosed.
"Back when I was growing up, not much was known about (NF)," Reeves said. "Now there's so much research and drug studies and stuff like that that are helping people with that. So I think events like this are helping find a cure — hopefully in my lifetime, there will be, because I don't want any other children to have to go through what I went through growing up."
To learn more about Nashville's chapter of the Undie Run event, visit the Cupid's Undie Run website, cupids.org. More information about the Children's Tumor Foundation — including how to donate — is available on the nonprofit's website, ctf.org.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Runners get half-naked in Cupid's Undie Run to raise money for condition