5th Annual Charge for CHARGE 5K

The week before Joey and Josh's birthday was the 5th Annual Charge for CHARGE 5K! We had a great event this year, our volunteers are awesome! We had 108 finishers and many generous donations and I am confident we will hit our goal of $5,000 before the year end! Thank you to everyone who volunteered, participated, spectated, and were a part of this event in big and small ways, every bit is appreciated. I brought the camera, but there was no time to think to pick it up. Here is a link to some pics that were taken by Grandma-thanks! And some others from our neighbor whose son placed 2nd! Great job Joe!

4th Annual Joshua Kurby Charge for CHARGE 5K

Thank you for all of your support for our 4th Annual Charge for CHARGE 5K run and walk. We were able to raise over $3,300 in memory of Joshua and in support of the CHARGE Syndrome Foundation. Our top male runner was David Hensley with a time of 21:06 and our top female runner Allison McGrath with a time of 23:01. Runner’s times are able to be viewed at mychicagoathlete.com under race results. We had runners and walkers from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio! We hope that everyone who traveled near and far had a great day and made it back home safely. This year we had a new venue but proved to be the most successful race to date! We had perfect weather and great people to share this day! All money that was raised was directly donated to the CHARGE Syndrome Foundation in memory of Josh and can be viewed on our personal fundraising page here. We are already planning our 5th Annual Charge for CHARGE 5K and hope that we will see you all next year! Again thank you for making this a great day!

4th Annual Charge for CHARGE 5K

Thank you to Lisa W., we have the registration form on a pdf/link that I am able to post here! New location, but hoping for a great day in memory of Joshua, the first to make me Mommy! Happy Mother's Day! Mommy loves Joshy.

More Charge for CHARGE pics...

We got yet again some great responses from runners. We had our 1st place winner contact me again--well to get his medal since he had to leave early, but spoke of praises of the race and will most likely be out there next year to defend his title!

A few others e-mailed to say they thought it was a "great race and a great time" and "really enjoyed the well organized race!"

Results have been posted on raceime.info website, as well as the CARA and Chicago Athlete web sites.

Here are some pics from my mom's camera. Another Shutterfly person so I can give you the link.

And the finish line pics.

3rd Annual Charge for CHARGE 5K!

Yesterday was the 3rd Annual Charge for CHARGE 5K! The weather held out pretty perfectly for us to get our run/walk in, awards, raffle, and cleaned up. Once we got home the skies opened up and it was pouring!

We had a great day with 118 bib numbers accounted for, and even more that donated. We raised $2,815 at the race alone, and have had other donations on our fundraising page. It looks like we will hit our goal of $5,000 before time runs out!

Thank you again to all of the volunteers who help orchestrate everything so seamlessly, those that participate since they are the reason we can get out there and put something like this together in the first place, and everyone who donated. It was once again a wonderful day. I have so many great pictures to sort through, so if you are looking for one of yourself I am sure I have it, just let me know and I will look for it. Otherwise, here are some of the great pictures our volunteers took! These are mostly Crystal's pictures, but a few from Phil as well.


Click here to see pictures from my sister, all good as well, but I can't get them off of Shutterfly and haven't gotten her card yet.

Soon we will have some from the water station as well! Yes, lots of pictures, but lots of fun to be captured too!

And be on the lookout, after the holidays I will be announcing the 4th Annual Joshua Kurby Charge for CHARGE 5K!

Charge for CHARGE 5K in the Press!

Here is the article in the Press (MySuburbanLife) that will be in tangible print tomorrow. I really liked the article that the Daily Herald ran, but this is still some great publicity! The details aren't quite right but it was nice to have our whole family represented in a photo, even if the caption underneath is not quite right either! The quote at the end about determined parents was supposed to be describing the kiddos with CHARGE, not the parents, but parents are great advocates! I don't want to criticize the article, again so happy to get the awareness out there, and once again thank you Cindy for doing all the footwork to get the interviews going, and making sure they run!

Here is the article.
Hope to see you on Saturday!

Happy Birthday Java!

Today is Java's 6th birthday! She has been with us through good times and bad, and is nothing short of patient with Joey and Jillian as they try to ride her around the house like a horse, play sometimes a little too rough, feed her things she probably shouldn't be eating (fruit snacks are good for dogs, right?), and always ready to give a big kiss to anyone. Happy Birthday Java Chewbacca! (Java's middle name was a lost bet on my part...if I broke my marathon goal that year her middle name would be Marathon since we picked her up in the afternoon after I ran, if I lost Chewbacca... now you know how that race turned out!)


And as I was trying to find the other article a bit prematurely, its not supposed to run until Friday, I found this mention in the Carol Stream Press on August 4, when we were on vacation.

Charge for CHARGE 5K in the news!

We are nearing the 3rd Annual Joshua Kurby Charge for CHARGE 5K! Can you feel the excitement building? We can! Thanks to a great friend of mine, Cindy, who has been our press release girl we have been mentioned in the Examiner, this article in the Daily Herald that will run tomorrow (Tuesday), and also the Press (My Suburban Life) on Friday! I did an interview and had another family who is also the president of our Foundation as of this past conference, write an essay for the article. I'll let this article speak for itself!
Click here for the Daily Herald article put out this afternoon.

In addition, Cindy got connected with the Press/My Suburban Life where I did a phone interview and on Saturday we had a photographer come to the house. We all donned our CHARGE gear, although I'm not sure it will show in the picture in the paper, but Joey and Jillian seemed like they knew they were doing something special for their brother. They even told the photographer who was in the frames that they were holding...Joshua of course! I will post that article as soon as I find it available...supposed to be Friday. (And Jillian now thinks she is a star and had to put on her new sunglasses!) Thank you Cindy for the great PR!

Charge for CHARGE Fund Raising

Thank you so much for your participation in the 2nd Annual Joshua Kurby Charge for CHARGE 5K! We had a great race day, and are already thinking of next year's date. Thank you for all that participated, volunteered, donated, and sent well wishes. We were able to surpass last year's fund raising total by almost $100...so far! We still have until the end of the year to make our $5,000 goal!

Surpassing last year's fund raising total shows great success for the race. I had been warned by other race director's of a "sophomore slump" where there is a huge dip in participation, volunteers, and overall enthusiasm. I am so pleased to say this was not the case for us, and know that we will be back even bigger next year! Please feel free to send me any comments/suggestions about the race/post race events so we can continue making each year a more successful year than the previous.

The breakdown of funds raised:
$2,480 in registration online, mail-in, and race day
$450 additional donations
to total $2,930 in funds raised from the 2nd Annual Charge for CHARGE 5K!
We had accrued $1,365 on our CHARGE Accounts web page prior to the race, meaning some people that knew they were not going to be able to attend the race donated prior, or donations were made in memory of Joshua at other times during this year. So our total funds raised this year so far are $4,295!

Last year's total ended at $4,225, so we are already ahead of last year and well on our way to our goal of $5,000 for the year end. Thank you for all you have done to help support the CHARGE Syndrome Foundation, and our family.

2nd Annual Charge for CHARGE 5K!

Yesterday was the 2nd Annual Charge for CHARGE 5K and for what threatened to be a rainy day was an absolutely perfect morning. I was up and out putting signs along the course at 5am with a sprinkle of rain here and there, asking Josh to pull some strings up there. After heading back to the pavilion to settle some stuff, others from their cars and home, we all were amazed with the double rainbow in the sky. I couldn't stop taking pictures and couldn't show how the rainbows were perfectly framing the pavilion where the race registration was.
As volunteers arrived everyone was talking about the rainbows that they saw, the family of deer, 2 snapping turtles, it was just a perfect start to the day for everyone. We all felt Josh's presence and had smiles on our faces.


The rest of the race went well. We had a glitch or two with our race timing company which delayed our awards adn raffle ceremony, but otherwise we were very happy with the day's event. We had 2 t-shirts this year white was the official race shirt with the proper year (2nd Annual). The blue shirts were misprinted but the color that I had wanted. Unfortunately the printer had put Inaugural on those shirts, so our volunteers wore those for the day. Thank you to all of our volunteers that helped out, and many who have done so for 2 years now! Without you we could not do this at all! And thank you to Beth for always helping us...this year just like last she took Joey on the walk so that we wouldn't have to worry about him during the race. She also had Andrew and is always so good with them. Thank you!

Our first place finisher, Jesse Owens did a great job with a finishing time of 17:38. It was wonderful to see so many people come together to help us raise money for the CHARGE Syndrome Foundation. We had 5 states repreesnted: Illinois (of course), Ohio, Michigan, New York, and Washington. Thank you to everyone that came out and made it a wonderful day. I will post the total amount raised as well as more pictures (although there are a lot here) very soon. All money will be forwarded to the CHARGE Syndrome Foundation in memory of Joshua and can be viewed on his Charge for CHARGE web page, which I will have the link up again in the next day or so.

Again, thank you to everyone and we hope to see you next year!

1st Annual Joshua Kurby Charge for CHARGE 5K!

I am excited to let you know that I have been working very hard on organizing a 5K run/walk (strollers also welcome!) in memory and honor of Joshua. All of the proceeds will be going to the CHARGE Syndrome Foundation. The months of planning are coming to fruition, although there is a lot of work still to do. Please save the date (August 1st), or sign up now for the 1st Annual Joshua Kurby Charge for CHARGE 5K! Feel free to download and print the registration form here or to register online click here.

(If for some reason that does not work for you go to signmeup.com and search Kurby)

The event is also listed on mychicagoathlete.com and will be on cararuns.org (Again, search for the race under calendar).

If you'd like to volunteer please let me know and I will gladly put you on the list. Volunteers will also receive an event t-shirt! If you would like to just come out and cheer others on you are more than welcome to do that too! Hope to see you all soon!

Once you have registered, if you want to confirm your registration click here and you will receive an e-mail confirmation again.