The Baltimore Running Festival is not only a great event for runners, the 5K, half marathon, team relay and full marathons have raised over $2.5 million for charities over the past 7 years. That means some great support for organizations like Baltimore Reads, Moveable Feast, Kids on the Hill, Health Care for the Homeless, Special Olympics Maryland, Baltimore Office of Promotions and the Arts, Police Athletic League, Baltimore City Community College, The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the AIDS Foundation and Tissue Bank International. In addition to these charities, a quick internet search for “marathon running charities” yielded several organizations that have set up methods for raising money when you run…its not hard to find a good cause for all the time you spend training for and running a marathon.
Recently I received an email from friends who suggested another great charity associated with this year’s Baltimore Running Festival. Jim and Pam McKee speak with great love for Baltimore’s own Helping Up Mission (HUM) and they’re excited about Team HUM challenging the half marathon. Here’s some of the email from Jim and Pam:
Dear Friends,
This week Pam and I made the decision to sponsor Team HUM as they attempt to complete the half-marathon in the Baltimore Running Festival, October 11. You can read more about Team HUM and the run @ http://community.helpingupmission.org/NETCOMMUNITY/Page.aspx?pid=320&srcid=183, but the reason they are running is the number of homeless men and recovering addicts HUM is servicing has increased 40% since this time last year.
The reason we support Helping Up Mission financially is the fact that we have seen first hand how lives are being saved and changed everyday. Another reason is that by partnering with Helping Up Mission we are able to work together with thousands of other people, churches and organizations to do what none of us could do alone.
So there you have it, run for health, run for fun or run for charities…either way the Baltimore Running Festival has something for just about everyone.
Tom Tasselmyer
