Quincy Woman to Run Marathon for Late Sister

Susanna Lynch on a training run.

BOSTON -- Alexandria Lynch, called Allie by family and friends, never got the chance to be paired with a friend through Best Buddies, the organization Anthony Kennedy Shriver founded in 1989 to match volunteers with people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

In 2007, at age 13, she died while napping on the couch at home in Quincy. She held a special place in the Lynch family - the little sister with complex developmental disabilities adopted from foster care into the waiting arms of Joseph Harry Lynch, his wife Patricia, and their five other children. She first stayed at their home at just two weeks old, and they adopted her two years later.
Some of Allie’s siblings volunteer and fund-raise for Best Buddies. One sister, Liz Southard of Quincy, coordinated the Best Buddies program at Boston College High School until leaving to stay home with her children; another, Sheila Lynch, belonged to the Best Buddies chapter at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia before her death at age 23.

Now sister Susanna Lynch, 25, is running the Boston Marathon for Best Buddies to honor Allie.