The first ever Garden Gallop 5k was a huge success – raising over $5,000 for the Food Shuttle’s Camden Street Learning Garden!
Participants ran, walked, and pushed strollers through the Dorthea Dix campus on Saturday, June 10th, starting at 8am. The money raised from the 5K will go towards supporting the Camden Street Learning Garden’s multi-generational agriculture education programming. The overall winner, Bobby Mack, finished with a time of 16:46 – and just happens to be the husband to the Food Shuttle’s Mobile Nutrition Coordinator, Carrie Mack. Congrats, Bobby!
The Food Shuttle would like to give a huge thanks to everyone that came out in support. A special thank you goes out to Meredith Brown, who put the whole thing together, as well as the Broughton Community and the Food Ark students.
“I am overwhelmed by what a success the event was!” Katie Murray, Food Shuttle Urban Agriculture Education Manager, said, “It is so wonderful to see a young person like Meredith Brown, who is so passionate about garden and cooking education, be willing to put so much time and hard work into supporting the Food Shuttle.”
Seventeen-year-old Meredith is a junior at Broughton High School involved with her school’s chapter of the Food Ark, a group that works to fight food insecurity and often works closely with the Food Shuttle.
Garden Gallop Organizer and Broughton Junior Meredith Brown
She created the Garden Gallop 5k to raise money for one of the goals of the Food Shuttle that is close to her heart – to teach people how to shop and grow healthy foods on a budget. Coming from a family of runners, the idea to organize a race came naturally to her.
Brown said she was motivated to start the project after volunteering at the Camden Street Learning Garden and instantly fell in love with it and the way it impacted the community in a positive way. “Staying motivated was really easy,” Brown said, “I knew I wanted this event to happen, so I had to make sure it did and it became something that I loved working on.”
Organizing the event took about 6 months and Brown said there were a lot of hoops to jump through. At first she had trouble finding a place to host the event because there was extra difficulty hosting it in a neighborhood as well as fitting into the already very busy schedule of the City of Raleigh. Luckily, the Dorthea Dix property opened up and she said she jumped on the opportunity.
“My goal for the 5K was really just to have people actually run it. I wanted to raise money for the Garden, obviously, but more importantly I wanted to raise awareness about it,” Brown said, “I feel like I definitely reached that goal. Over 160 people registered for the race, over $5,000 was raised for the Garden, and I think Inter-Faith got a lot of publicity in the community, which makes me extremely happy.”
Overall, Meredith said she’s happy with how the event turned out despite any small imperfections that may have happened along the way. “I thought the event was super awesome, and it made all the hard work worth it,” she said.