Tagged with " Freaky5k"
Sep 16, 2012 - fitness    No Comments

2012 Freaky 5k: now with more SPARKLE!

I set the bar high with my goal of $250, and I have so far received three donations totalling $105 — which is AWESOME. (Thank you A.C. in NY, B.W. in Maine, and …. my mom and dad.) But I REALLY want to meet my goal, and it was easier last year with Komen because everyone hates cancer, and everyone knows what Race for the Cure is. Hardy Girls, Healthy Women is a much smaller organization, but it has big needs, too. And maybe even more, because HGHW can’t just slap some pink on something and get five cents in return, their money is earned with a little more grass-roots effort, which is why it REALLY matters to me. So, I upped the ante.

If I meet my goal, I will wear a skirt in the race. Not just any skirt. A SEQUINED skirt, from Team Sparkle. Now, if you know me, you know why this is a very valuable prize. I am Not a Skirt Girl. And I am especially Not a Sequined Skirt Girl. Not much of the bedazzling type, over here,  more of a jeans-and-t-shirt or khakis-and-long-sleeved-knit-shirt girl. I do have patent leather shoes… but they are Danskos, so that is immediately negated.

But look at these skirts:

A sampling of the skirts at Team Sparkle (image from www.team-sparkle.com)

 

And tell me you wouldn’t pay good money to see ME run a 5k in one. Exactly.

So, for every $5 you donate, you earn a vote to pick which color I will run in. (And yes, pink is an option. If you know me, you are looking for your wallet. If you don’t know me, just know that… I hate pink. Like, a lot. A whole lot. But if I get $250 for HGHW and the votes are in pink’s favor, that is what I will order.) You can donate through FirstGiving, or if you know me personally and would rather give me cash, I can take those donations, too. My 3 initial donors will get their votes and rewards, too, even though I just came up with this plan today. And if I run in a sparkly skirt, EVERYONE will be rewarded with a photograph of that.

The theme of the Freaky5k is “bringing scary back,” and to most people, a sequined skirt is not exactly SCARY. But to me, running a race is pretty scary, and doing it in a SPARKLY SKIRT is even scarier, so I’m bringing scary back in my own way.

You can donate and vote until October 17, and you can donate and not vote after that date, too. (I just need time to order the winning color.)

Here is Guidestar’s page on HGHW, if you want to know more about the organization and verify that they are aboveboard and worth your $5 and my 5k. In a sparkly skirt. (And for what it’s worth, Komen has a 1 star rating, based on 656 reviews, at Guidestar – so your support of my race this year is really and truly for a great cause.)

And this is their mission statement:

Hardy Girls works with communities and with girls themselves to change the environment in which girls are developing. We aren’t focused on fixing a problem with girls but on the world they are experiencing. We see and imagine the best girls can be, we create fun and challenging spaces for them to realize their strengths and talents and we engage the community in that process. Hardy Girls’ work is based on research that shows girls going through adolescence lose the strong voices that were natural to them in their early years. As girls reach adolescence the difference between the images they see of women in the media and the image they have of themselves causes them to turn their anger and confusion inward. While boys “act out”, girls “act in”, causing them to engage in at-risk, destructive behavior damaging their bodies and their minds. Our vision is that all girls and women experience equality, independence and safety in their everyday lives.