Ten-year-old Peyton Madden lives with an extremely rare and life-threatening allergy to sunlight called xeroderma pigmentosum (XP), which highly restricts his ability to engage in typical daytime activities without extreme head-to-toe coverage, and with summer temperatures around 105°F, he can easily overheat—a devastating limitation for a child who loves to play outside, ride his bike, and swim. He has never been to the local pool with his friends.

On August 4, 2017, the entire town of El Dorado came together to transform evening into morning for Peyton: inviting him to engage in all that the community has to offer, but under the safety of darkness.

In a town of just thousands, nearly 500 people showed up for “Good Morning Peyton,” giving him the “day” of his dreams. To cap it off, the mayor presented an official town proclamation, declaring the evening of August 4th to be “Peyton’s Morning.”

While the “Do your Share for Rare” campaign began to roll out across the country, we learned of Peyton Madden, a 10-year-old boy with a rare allergy to light called xeroderma pigmentosum. We immediately took aim at his town of El Dorado, KS, first contacting the Madden family to gauge their interest in taking part in the project.

Good Morning Peyton was technically and organizationally challenging from day 1, but what made it easy was the willing participation of every single person we worked with in not just El Dorado, but in the neighboring cities of Wichita and Kansas City as well. Our idea to transform night into day for Peyton was met with excitement by everyone.

For weeks we worked to plan each moment of the 500-person event: secured safe lighting for Peyton, ran ads in local papers, organized local vendors, produce signage, and procured Nerf guns and cereal.

Following the “Good Morning Peyton” event in August 2017, local, national and global media reported on how El Dorado, KS transformed night into day for a boy with a rare allergy to sunlight. From local radio stations to social media to a feature in the Daily Mail, we saw over 35M total impressions in the weeks following the event.

Since launching at the end of October 2017, the “Good Morning Peyton” documentary has had 83,779 total video views (75K via NORD’s Facebook page, and 8.8K on YouTube). On YouTube, the video was viewed at least once in 77 countries, and at least 20 times in 31 countries. A separate “Good Morning Peyton” Facebook post from The Mighty reached nearly 130K people.

In November 2017, it was chosen as SHOOT Online’s “Top Spot of the Week.”

The National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) reports elevated engagement in advocacy and fundraising efforts.

When the National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) approached us and asked us to help them change how the world sees rare disease, we decided to re-assess our typical approach to advertising and inspire the general public in a new way. By planning a large-scale event to transform night into day for a child with a rare allergy to light, we activated an entire community—plus its neighboring cities—to get involved with a cause many knew nothing about.

Rare diseases touch more than just the patient. These conditions also impact families, friends, caregivers, physicians, payors, and communities as a whole. There is an urgent need to spread awareness of the current state of rare diseases and the gaps in care and support. "For those living with a rare disease, the awareness, education, and support of others is paramount," said Peter L. Saltonstall, President and CEO of NORD.

The Good Morning Peyton event helped to solidify more widespread awareness, which for someone living with a rare disease, means a great deal. The event was picked up by numerous local outlets, which then spread to national outlets and then global ones.

Globally, there are about 7,000 rare diseases. Compared to widespread conditions that affect millions of people, rare diseases can lack interest among the general public and the medical and research communities. Most of these individual diseases receive little attention because they affect only thousands of patients worldwide. There are approximately 30 million people living with a rare disease in the U.S.—more than half of them being children.

The numbers are staggering, and we needed to help NORD find a compelling way to pique the public’s interest in this huge, urgent void.

Good Morning Peyton, as part of the Do Your Share for Rare campaign, focused on encouraging individuals to get involved in this community. The hope was that by watching how one community came together in a rare act of kindness and humanity to support Peyton Madden, others may be inspired to do their own share for rare.