A Touching Tribute
Massage-a-Thon Honors Asthma Victim, Benefits Lung Association

When Dana Holm was a little girl, she frequently visited residents of a nursing home near her home in San Jose. As a grown woman, she volunteered to drive people to and from Grace Place, a homeless shelter in El Dorado Hills.

"She has always been a person who's always been aware of other people, just always kind and thoughtful," said Shirley Edwards, Holm's mother.

On Friday, Holm's legacy of charity continued through the Healing Arts Institute, which organized and hosted a 12-hour massage-a-thon to honor her and to raise money for the American Lung Association and Grace Place.

Holm had graduated from the Citrus Heights institute, where she was learned massage therapy, before she died of an asthma attack in July. She was 43.

Part of the fundraiser is to raise awareness of asthma, said Dan Wallach, a massage therapist who in March attended a three-week course at the institute with Holm. It was a tightly knit class, but Wallach said he and many of his classmates weren't aware Holm had asthma. Holm was outgoing and had a zest for life, he said.

A recent picture of Holm stands on a table at the entrance of the institute. She looks tanned and athletic in a green halter top, gazing out at the Pacific coastline from a deck at Jenner.

Holm's father, Art Edwards, said that on the day his daughter died she was planning to go on a camping trip.

Her mother found her dead on the bathroom floor, an inhaler in one hand and her medication in the other. "She shocked us by dying of an asthma attack," Wallach said.

The American Lung Association, citing figures from the National Center for Health Statistics, in a 2006 report said that about 4,000 to 5,000 people died of asthma each year between 1993 and 2003.

"We had no idea that asthma could be so lethal," said Mark Richmond, another graduate of the school. Wallach said Richmond came up with the idea of organizing a massage-a-thon, a first for the institute.

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