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Team Vegan 2008 Smashing Boundaries, Exceeding Expectations, Destroying "I Can't Do It", and the Joy of Double-Caffeinated Gel! | |||||
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On February 2nd, 2008, we all gathered at Greens Restaurant to kick off our training. Eighteen people, many of whom had never run before, met their teammates, and some of the best donors around came to help the team start their journey. We had three months to train to run a 10k (6.2 miles) or a half marathon (13.1 miles) and each raise $1,000 for Vegan Outreach. Three runners even joined remotely from the East Coast! We were told we wouldn't be able to raise that much and we should lower our fundraising goals. We were told we could never run that far and should plan on walking the course. We were told most of our team would drop out by the end of the first month. |
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But what happened on Saturday, April 12, three months after the Greens kick-off brunch? 18 runners ran in the Santa Cruz 10k/Half Marathon, proudly wearing Team Vegan t-shirts, and three more joined us in spirit from New Jersey, Virginia and Pennsylvania! The total raised? Well, if each runner had raised $1000, we would have celebrated $21,000 for Vegan Outreach. We did not raise $21,000, however. Drumroll please... Team Vegan 08 raised a total of $86,948. Yes, we added that up correctly. No, we are not exaggerating by a penny. Check it out the fundraising page. Scroll down to the bottom for the beautiful total. Go up to the top to check out individual runner's pages. Look on the right to see how much people gave to help animals. Now you all know why Alex had tears in her eyes (literally) at the finish line. |
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Thank you! Team Vegan runners, for training and fundraising for 12 weeks, in the midst of your normal busy lives. Thanks for your consistently great attitudes, laughter, support, jokes, movie recommendations, sports bra discussions, and of course, tips on which gel has the most caffeine. |
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Thank you! Team Vegan donors, for giving so much to help animals. Vegan Outreach leafleters create more vegetarians. Period, end of story. More leafleting = more vegetarians = fewer animals dying agonizing deaths. Joanna S. in North Carolina was so inspired by Team Vegan that she challenged The Write Cause members to meet her in a challenge match AND she gave $6,000 of her own money. John and Fany from Canada took it up to a whole 'nother level: Mid-program, they agreed to match everything Team Vegan raised. Seriously. Their final gift? $45,000. These are the sort of people we got to know via Team Vegan. People who walk their talk, who give enough to make a real difference, people who care and live lives of caring actions. Look at that list of donors...it's incredible! Yvonne, Dean, Eugene, Scott, Shilpa and Keyur, Becky, Tonya and Ross, Katherine...people really gave. We at Vegan Outreach are humbled and deeply touched by the runners and donors of Team Vegan 2008. |
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Thank you so very much! More special thanks go to...
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The biggest hurdle to creating a veg world is lack of money. Thank you, Team Vegan, for helping us make that hurdle a little smaller! We proudly salute our team: |
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Nancy, Melanie, Jeannie, Elizabeth, Nick, Corey, Allison, Nicole, Nina, Emily K, Mark, Mary, Elise, Emily M, Andrea, Uva, Lauren, Kristie, Steve, Alex, Matt and our honorary runners Todd, Doug, Eric, Daniel, Jack and Ruby. Don't ever let anyone say you are less than amazing! |
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Vegan Outreach would like to give a very special thank you to Alex Bury for volunteering over 100 hours to put Team Vegan together and make it such a smashing success! |
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More Pictures from Team Vegan 2008 | |||||
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