ELEEF plans inaugural 5K road race fund-raiser

Date: 8/30/2011

Aug. 29, 2011

By Chris Maza

Reminder Assistant Editor

EAST LONGMEADOW — Get ready to lace up those running shoes and step out for education.

The East Longmeadow Educational Endowment Fund (ELEEF) is looking for registrations for their Run for Education 5K run/walk on Sept. 25.

“This is a brand new fund-raiser for us,” Damon D’Amico, president of ELEEF’s Board of Directors, said. “Hopefully it’s something we’ll be doing for years and years.”

D’Amico said the idea for a road race fundraiser stemmed from conversations between members of ELEEF who wanted to do something that would involve a larger portion of residents.

“We’ve been around for 15 years and we have always had two big fund-raisers – the dinner dance and our golf outing,” D’Amico said. “Obviously kids can’t come to the dinner dance and drink martinis, so we wanted to start a new fund-raiser that could lend itself towards young people and families. We decided on a road race because we felt it was something this town could get behind.”

In addition to targeting a wider group of people, D’Amico said the road race epitomizes East Longmeadow.

“When we had these meetings to discuss a new fund-raiser, we asked ourselves, “What comes to mind when you think of East Longmeadow? What is East Longmeadow all about?’” D’Amico said. “We have an active community, a terrific school system and a picturesque suburban setting, so we thought about how we could tie it all together and a road race was the obvious choice.”

The race will also involve some friendly competition between schools as a $250 cash prize will be awarded to the Parent-Teacher Organization that has the most participants.

“As a group we wanted to have a unique way to incorporate the schools,” D’Amico said. “Runners will be asked on the registration form which school they are running for and the school with the most runners wins the prize.”

The course will start at Maybury Material Handling at 90 Denslow Road. From there runners will follow the Red Stone Rail Trail, take a left onto Chestnut Street, then take a left onto Denslow Road, finishing back at Maybury.

“We wanted to make sure we incorporated the rail trail into the race somehow,” D’Amico said.

D’Amico characterized the course as “on the low end of challenging” and added that the race has been sanctioned by United States Track and Field.

In addition to the 5K race, there will be a fun run or children 10 years old or younger at 10 a.m.

Registration is scheduled for 8 a.m. with a start time of 9 a.m. Those who wish to pre-register may do so by sending a registration form along with $35 to Jennifer Merrigan, 32 Donamor Lane, East Longmeadow, MA 01028 by Sept. 4.

Late registration is also available the day of the race at a cost of $40. Registration for the fun run is $5. Those who pre-register will also be given a T-shirt.

According to D’Amico, WF Young, Alden Medical and PeoplesBank have been major contributors to the race as gold level sponsors.

“We have had a lot of sponsors, but those three companies have really stepped up,” D’Amico said.

Registration forms and sponsorship information is available on the ELEEF Web site at www.eleef.org/fundraisers/eleefrunforeducati.