Story from this past weekend as we wrapped up our first ever Feeding the 5k/5k

by Mark Van Iwaarden, GO! Board Member

Hi Everyone, it's not too late to donate to the GO! 5k for 5k - or donate again if you already have (thanks!). We're keeping things up through the end of the month (April), but we wrapped-up the event on Sunday and, if this story of "doing it for the kids" doesn't inspire you to give, I don't know what will. As some of you know from my previous communications, I did 5,000 vertical feet instead of 5,000 horizontal meters. Midweek, Mike Dee (also on the GO! Board) and I decide that on Sunday, we're going to do a big ride to finish things up. We each needed about 1,600 feet to complete our goal and a ride called Super Betasso fit the bill.

"It's for the kids" is what kept running through my mind as we slogged up what ended up being the snowiest Betasso we've ever done. It started with me falling in the snow because I couldn't get my foot out of my pedal cleat as we negotiated a slushy chunky Boulder Canyon trail (the Super part of Super Betasso).

Now, the fall really wasn't a big deal with the nice soft landing until I realized that my shoe essentially broke and left my cleat in my pedal basically rendering them useless for holding my foot on my pedal. So, from there on I was pedaling with hard plastic on a metal stump, not ideal in any conditions but especially on snowy, slushy steep trails.

We were able to make it up the super steep part of the Betasso Link trail without incident albeit slower than normal. We're almost to the top of the Link when I see Mike ahead of me but his bike is laying flat and he's underneath it. Long story short, he dislocated his middle finger in a spill on some nice jagged rocks. But, we soldier on..."for the kids!" So, I'm riding "one footed" and he's riding "one handed" - we were quite the pair. At this point, we're only about 1/4 of the way through the whole ride but, we think, we've got the difficult part (the Link) out of the way...or so we thought.

The rest of Betasso turned out to be just as difficult as 60 - 70% of it was a snowy, icy and slushy mess making regular riding extremely difficult let alone riding with "half a hand or foot." Needless to say it was rough going but again, we soldiered on for the kids. In hopes of getting more donations, let me also say that my broken shoe allowed all of the slush water to enter in anytime I stepped down on the snow to balance myself...which was often...ugh!

We were quite the pathetic pair as we rolled into Eben G Fine park to finish up. Strava said we did 1,888 vertical feet so we crushed our goal and we felt pretty good about conquering despite the obstacles. I've attached some pictures for proof - don't worry, Mike isn't mad at you for your driving. 😉 Thanks for helping feed the most vulnerable citizens of the globe!

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Global Orphan Relief held their first virtual 5k from March 20-28 and had 53 participants and almost 100 people financially supported the event. We raised $12,961 to feed vulnerable children around the world. Our heart is to scale our movement to feed 5,000 vulnerable children. Today we serve 3,281 vulnerable children, and all but 93 of these children receive some sort of nutritional support from our partners in DR Congo, Kenya, Pakistan, South Sudan, and Zambia.

The biggest need and largest number of children we serve are within South Sudan where we feed 2,646 children today. Please consider joining us to Feed the 5,000 today!

Movement of FAITH | Voice of HOPE | Act of LOVE

Feeding the 5k/5k Adventure

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