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Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving - they'll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they'll send your money directly to the Beyond Hunger. Proceeds collected during this Fundraiser will be equally split between Beyond Hunger and Housing Forward two Oak Park, IL Charities.

We live here in Oak Park, IL just outside of Chicago... a town of about 50,000 people. We have decided to raise funds for 2 different local charities to financially assist in their amazing efforts to support those in our community who require their services, particularly at this time.

The first is Housing Forward a charity which provides shelter and housing for those in need. Recently their shelter which was the Oak Park Temple was shut down completely due to the Corona Virus. They have rehoused up to 100 of their residents into motels and apartments at a cost of around $30,000 per week….so they are very much in need of funds.

The second is Beyond Hunger another Oak Park charity previously known as the Oak Park & River Forest Food Pantry. Beyond Hunger provides Hunger-relief programming and services to our local communities.

As we know the Corona Virus has been financially devastating for many people and the services of Beyond Hunger and Housing Forward are in particularly high demand!...both charities offer assistance to Oak Park and surrounding communities. It is noteworthy that the Corona Virus and its consequences have had a disproportionate effect on Minorities which is a large community supported by both charities

We hope to hold our Back Yard Family Marathon event on Sunday April 26th starting at 9:30am ...however we may make a last minute change in date depending on the weather. Rain is forecast and our laptops and cameras will not work so well once wet....nor some of the runners!

We have created a small running circuit in our Backyard and I will start off running a Marathon, my wife Kirsten will join roughly 3 hrs after that to start her Half Marathon run. Our son Jack will start his 10K run 2 hours later and our daughter Sophie starts her 5K run after a further half an hour. The idea is that we all finish around the same time. 

We really don't have much of an idea whose ankles and knees will survive running around and around in such small circles for such a long time!......there will be plenty of tripping hazards such as pot holes in our not so flat grass!... gravel, mulch, concrete and paving stones. it is truly a cross country course. Things will get tricky as time goes on and runners are added to the tiny circuit ...the congestion, direction changes and and added competition will make things interesting ;o)

What we are creating is a basically 6 hr fund raising Event. Our intention is to run this Live on multiple Social Media channels and invite viewers to donate to these causes directly from the online event.

We are looking for this to be an entertaining and fun event for viewers!......even though our goal is a serious one in collecting as much money as possible to assist these charities

The event is essentially a Zoom call that has Hosts and Guests which we have created in the "Stay Home" spirit where the collaborators.... our Hosts, Guests and Show Producer are from our neighborhood and also operating entirely remotely.  Our 4 family runners will be the only people in our backyard. Having said that we are hoping plenty of our neighbors pay a visit to our back yard fence and cheer on the runners....at a safe distance!

We are also looking to support small businesses in Oak Park and at each Mile of the run the Show Hosts will be giving a "Shout Out" to a local business such as a restaurant or brewery informing the viewers of the business's arrangements during this "Stay Home" period...for their business hours, curbside pick up, etc etc..

We will be inviting plenty of Guests to attend the event by calling in on Zoom to assist in the entertainment and fund raising. We will have family members, local news media and sports personalities where we can get them!

The key to this Marathon event of course is to have as many people as possible come to the online event in order to to invite them to donate to these 2 great charities. 

Please forward the link to our online event below....to any of your friends, social media networks, your street or block email lists and anyone else you can think of!!

We will publish the link as soon as the day is confirmed later this week

Thx!!... Anton