Inaugural Race for Red Cross a Huge Success

On Saturday, June 20th, 2009, EMPOWERED and USF Red Cross Club hosted the Inaugural Race for Red Cross at Al Lopez Park.  After months of planning, seeking sponsorships, registering runners, securing vendors, and much more, the event was finally here.  The heat of the summer, that soaked every runner and volunteer in sweat (even at 7am in the morning), could not deter nearly 250 runners who came out to “run the race for a better tomorrow.”

Joshua Epperson (18) took the gold for the men, coming in at 17:05 and Gabrielle Vazquez (19) secured the first place amongst the females with a time of 21:49.  Both winners went home with $100 gift certificates to Fit2Run, Gallagher’s Steakhouse and Planet Beach.  Congratulations to you both and thank you to our first place sponsors for donating the gift certificates!

Top Male and Female runners in each age group went home with either a $25 gift certificate to GameWorks or $25 to Fit2Run and Road ID (combined).  Congratulations to all of our age level winners.  Florida Road Race Management will be posting times on www.coolrunning.com in the next couple of days.

We would like to thank every single runner, volunteer and sponsor who supported this event.  Thanks to each of you we were able to raise nearly $8,000 and secure additional in-kind donations that valued nearly $27,000.

If you are interested in seeing more photos from the event, you may access Finish Line Photos from John Schackel or other wonderful shots from Lake’s Photography.  Again, thank you for your support.  We could not have done it without you!