I recently met Lauren Walsh who is the “Endurance Manager” for the Children’s Tumor Foundation. What does that mean? She coordinates race teams for all of their charity events in Chicago- she is the “chief runner”! How cool is that? As we were chatting she told me something new about the changes to the charity program for the Bank of America Chicago Marathon now that it will be a lottery. It was so interesting that I will let her tell you about it after she tells you about the Children’s Tumor Foundation and NF! Here’s Lauren:
Hi, I’m Lauren. Chicago native, runner, and philanthropist. Over the years I’ve done a variety of runs, all over the Midwest, and of course Chicago – my favorite city to run in. Period. Whenever I run a marathon, I do it for charity. I’ve run for a number of charities over the last few years, and I finally found one that stuck.
I learned about the Children’s Tumor Foundation from an old high school friend. I had never heard of Neurofibromatosis (also known as NF) before, nor had I heard of the Children’s Tumor Foundation. I loved the idea of running for a lesser-known charity. I felt that I personally was able to make a greater impact.
What is NF? NF causes tumors to grow on nerves throughout the body and can lead to blindness, bone abnormalities, cancer, deafness, disfigurement, learning disabilities, and excruciating and disabling pain. NF affects one in every 3,000 people, more than cystic fibrosis, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and Huntington’s disease combined.
As a research foundation, the Children’s Tumor Foundation is paving the way to find an effective treatment for NF. Every runner gets CTF one step closer!
This fall CTF has entries into the Bank of America Chicago Marathon on October 12th. Join the NF Endurance Team, get connected with an NF Hero (a child living with NF) and receive free entry to the marathon and race training from Chicago Endurance Sports! (a $200 value!)
Not only that, CTF has a deal for you! Sign up with CTF before the lottery closes on April 7 and your fundraising minimum is only $1,000! After the lottery is over, the minimum per runner is $1,500 (mandated by Bank of America). So sign up with CTF today and save yourself the stress (and some fundraising effort!).
As an added benefit, we’ll waive the $35 CTF registration fee for all runners referred by Erica Finds for any of our Chicago races! That includes the Rock ‘n’ Roll Chicago Half Marathon, Chicago Triathlon and Bank of America Chicago Marathon. Use code Chicago2014 on the CTF registration (click the links in this paragraph). This offer is good for charity entries for these Chicago events only.
Basically, if you run with CTF’s NF Endurance Team for the Chicago Marathon and sign up before April 7, you get a lot of bang for your $1,000 fundraising minimum: entry to the Chicago Marathon ($185 value), free training with CES ($204 or more value), no charity fee with code Chicago2014 ($35 savings), no need to stress over the lottery (priceless!), plus additional perks from the other Chicago partners: Fleet Feet Sports Chicago, Revolution Physical Therapy, Coop Gym, Sixpoint Brewery and Traci D. Mitchell. Oh, and you also get matched with an NF Hero plus you have the opportunity to make a large impact for this great organization. Last thing, you don’t have to live in Chicago to join the team or to take advantage of this opportunity. CES even has a virtual training program you can participate in!
A win-win – no? Questions? Contact Lauren at LWalsh@ctf.org.
PS. Speaking of awesome charities, don’t forget to check out my awesome raffle for Alexandra’s Playground!
