I’m very excited to announce that we are partnering up with Bigger Than The Trail for Dinosaur Valley Endurance Run. While this sport is very focused on physical health, we also want to raise awareness about mental health and ways we can work on that as well. Bigger Than The Trail is a non-profit organization focused on advocating for mental health awareness and providing resources for working on your mental health. They currently offer weekly Peer-2-Peer support groups, but additionally, they gather donations to provide direct mental health counseling to runners who request it. Over the years, they have provided 1400 months of mental health counseling for the running community’s members!! Last year, 73 runners benefited from these services.
Beyond being a Race Director, I’ve also done routine therapy for the last 4 years, and before that, I first went to therapy for a year when my second daughter was born, when I found that I was struggling with my mental health postpartum. I appreciate that I had the privilege of both time and money to be able to get help and to nowadays get routine support in my journey of doing my emotional work. But not everyone can get the help they need when they need it!
So this is where you come in! We are inviting all of our participants to adopt Bigger Than The Trail as a fundraising platform through their training season and up until they get to the finish line of Dinosaur Valley Endurance Run on November 18 or 19. Bigger Than The Trail has the fundraising software all set up, and while, you can choose any fundraising amount to target, I think that $540 is a manageable goal. Why $540? Because that is the amount to fund THREE months of routine counseling for a runner!
Everyone who fundraises and hits their goal will get a Bigger Than The Trail hat before race day so you can wear it to the race. Let’s plan to see those hats all over Dinosaur Valley State Park.
And because The Active Joe wants to reward those who dream big, we will give a free race entry for any race in 2024 to anyone who fundraises $1080 or more, which pays for 6 full months of mental health counseling for a runner!