Race for Grace

Race for Grace 2009

It took a lot of time and effort getting ready for the Race for Grace 2009... The "committee" spent an entire day just sorting T-shirts into teams and sizes, stuffing bags for each participant, and making the many wonderful posters you saw on August 1st! Aubree and Karen worked hard trying to get last minute details organized: from getting coffee donations for the volunteers who arrived at 6am, to waiting 20 minutes for the printer to print off 4 copies of the list of everyone who was registered! Jaime, Aubree's sister spent some of her free time folding 350 brochures and the "committee" and many volunteers wasted their time on Friday night when there was nothing to do but chat at Set Up because of the rain! But, of course all this payed off when...

The 1st annual Race for Grace finally came on August 1st, 2009 at Eastview High School in Apple Valley, MN!! Our volunteers arrived at 6:00am to help set up and get ready for the huge crowd that came at 8:00! At 8:30 we gathered as a group and a representative from Starkey, our main sponsor, spoke about their impact on the Race for Grace 2009! We then presented our giant check (literally) to Pete & Sue Wyckoff from Rein in Sarcoma! The look on their faces when they saw how much we raised was priceless! The 1 mile walk/run started at 9:00 and the 5K walk & run started at 9:45! We had 327 people registerd before August 1st, and 71 more people registerd on race day, making the total exactly 398 participants, plus our 30+ volunteers! Our goal was to have just 200 people!! Starkey donated 1,000 bottles of water with the Race for Grace logo on every single one of them, and sold Inta Juice for $3.00 each at the finish line with all proceeds to be added to our huge donation to Rein in Sarcoma! In the end, we raised $33,100 for sarcoma cancer research!! We couldn't have done any of this without each participant, volunteer, donator, "committee" member, and of course, the awesome idea to start a "Race for Grace!" Thanks everyone for your support for Grace Nelson, the Race for Grace, Rein in Sarcoma, and the many sarcoma cancers! We hope to see you all next year at the Race for Grace 2010!