BATON ROUGE - In downtown Baton Rouge, hundreds of participants gathered for Ryan's Run Saturday morning. The Baton Rouge run is named after former LSU and NFL player, Ryan Clark, who has the sickle cell trait and is the chairman for the event.

The event is committed to raising awareness for sickle cell disease with every step they take. One in 13 African American babies were born with the sickle cell trait.

It affects more than 100,000 individuals in the country, with around 3000 living in Louisiana. The disease can lead to severe pain, organ damage, and even life-threatening conditions.

Clark told WBRZ the disease has affected his life in more than one way.

"Lost my spleen my gallbladder, a piece of liver of my liver, and almost my life as well, then the next year my sister in law, she died, she had sickle cell and died at the age of 27 after a cell crisis," Clark said.

Clark said traumatic experiences encouraged him to shine a light working with the Sickle Cell Association of South Louisiana and bring attention. 

"I think the people who understand what sickle cell is, and how it affects those who have the sickle cell trait or sickle cell disease. I think they know how important is to raise awareness for it; They know how important is to share the light on the entire community doesn't matter what color we all understand what’s it like to fight something, we all understand what it’s like to go through adversity."

The board chairman for the Sickle Cell Association of South Louisiana, Alvin Henry, told WBRZ he is thankful and appreciative for the community coming out in support of the awareness. 

"It’s not as well known, roughly a hundred thousand people in America have it and with those numbers, it’s not everywhere. Some people have even heard of the sickle cell. Just to have this many come out to support us early Saturday morning does mean a lot," Henry said.

If you missed the event and would like to show support in the awareness, Henry encourages people to donate at scasl.org.