Jun 20, 2016

Thank you to everyone who participated in or sponsored our 5th annual Midsummer 5K Run and Nordic Pole Walkathon - it was a huge success once again! We had a great turnout and participation, with plenty of runners and a good number of Nordic Pole walkers arriving for a beautiful day at Prospect Park. It was our first year inviting Nordic Pole Walkers and we couldn’t have done that without our partners at HYVÄ Nordic Walking. They provided our walkers with complimentary Nordic Poles as well as a thorough introductory lesson before the race!

Our two first-place winners, Zachary Howenstine and Jessica McEntee, came in at blazing speeds (20:18 and 22:30 respectively) and got their equally impressive first-place $100 Amazon gift cards prizes. All the runners were greeted at the finish line with plenty of water, courtesy of Nestle; yummy Finlandia cheese sandwiches, Finnish chocolates via Sockerbit, who also donated gift certificates to their store which we raffled. Thank you to Raiff for the gift certificate given to our biggest fundraiser, Helena Grönberg! We could not have done it without the dedication of Thomas Riggs, our race coordinator; the Finland Center, Kota, and NFCC interns; and Suomi-seura (The Finland Society, Finland), Valmarin, and all of our other generous sponsors.

75% of the proceeds from our race will be going to support The Kota Alliance and its member organizations in their pursuit of gender equality and women’s empowerment, currently with us at the Centre for Social Innovation’s Women’s Lab, and through a future world center for women in NYC.