Eleven years ago when we set out to create a charity 5K to raise money and awareness about fetal syndromes, I didn’t want it to be just another charity 5K. I wanted it to be a celebration of family. I wanted an event that allowed families the opportunity to spend time together during and after the event making wonderful memories together. We also wanted to be sure those that came to the event, whether to honor a lost angel(s) or to celebrate their survivor(s) had an outlet to share and pay tribute to their loved children. We dreamed big and had an unquestionable resolve to do what many charity events struggled to do.
In 2009, in only our 6th year, we were voted the #1 5K in Colorado by readers of Colorado Running Magazine. This was a huge honor because there are hundreds of 5K’s in Colorado. We were very humbled by the award.
[blockquote name=””]our Denver event was voted as the 2014 Best Kids Run.[/blockquote]
Each year our team is always working to make our event better. We never settle for just doing what we always do, and always look at ways to improve the event. In one major change for example, in 2013 we took a chance and renamed our event to “The Great Candy Run”. First the idea was not to gorge our participants on sugar, but to create a fun theme that everyone, young and old alike, could resonate with. This was a tall challenge because we also wanted to ensure we kept true to our charity and to the many families (us among them) that either had survivors of a fetal syndrome or were there in memoriam of their angel children. We learned a lot and still are learning on ways to improve our event, but overall we had a huge success in Denver and in Jacksonville (Florida).
We were very honored and shocked to learn that you, as our supporters and fans, are embracing what we wanted the event to be about. This was certainly validated for our Denver event as it was voted as the 2014 Best Kids Run by readers of Competitor Magazine. In Denver, we had over 2000 kids from ages 5 – 13 participate in their very first 5K. Their excitement and glow in their eyes was second only to the same emotions felt on Christmas morning.
We thank you all for your loyal support of our event, but more importantly in supporting family. Our battle against fetal syndromes is not even close to being over.