Byrdstown Holds Initial Meeting for Upcoming 5k

The City of Byrdstown held its initial meeting Thursday to discuss their upcoming 5k run this Fall in benefit of St. Jude.

The meeting consisted of changing the event’s date to October 22nd. Mayor Sam Gibson said the local officials changed the date in order to allow more people to participate.

“Before, it was held during Fall break here at the schools and that took a lot of our potential participants away because a lot of people went off on vacation during that time,” Gibson said.

Gibson said the event organizers also decided during the meeting to coordinate the 5k through the city’s activities group.

“We’re having a movie on Friday night and then we’ll have our 5k run on Saturday morning,” Gibson said.

The meeting also recognized the 10-year anniversary of the 5k event. Gibson said the event has raised over $24,000 dollars in recent years to be sent to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

“All of the money that comes in from donations and so forth, it all goes to St. Jude,” Gibson said. “No one gets paid any at all for this, all of the work is by volunteers… all of the money goes to St. Jude, which is a great, great organization.”

Gibson noted that he has never heard anyone speak negatively in regard to the St. Jude organization. He said they hope to continue the recently retired Carol Franklin’s work for the cause.

“We’re going to try to keep this thing going, Carol Franklin used to work it and was the coordinator of this for ten years,” Gibson said. “She’s retired from that and it’s such a great opportunity to donate money to that we’re going to continue that.”

Gibson cited this first meeting as a pivotal stepping stone for the event itself. He said there has been lots of community support behind the project and all that goes into it.

“We probably had about twelve people here today that are wanting to be volunteers, to donate their time,” Gibson said. “Having an event like that takes more than just one person, or two people, it takes a group of people working together.”

Gibson said if some people may not be able to volunteer due to prior engagements, there will soon be opportunities for them to donate and help remotely.

“If you go to the Town Hall website, we’re getting ready to put information on there of how they can do that,” Gibson said. “Or, they can just bring their donations by here at Town Hall.”

Gibson said he hopes the event provides attendees with a fun, family-friendly time in support of a great cause.