Posted on Jan 31, 2016 in
NEWSWORTHY
Will Haase, Dylan Alexander, Riley Spengeman, Rashawn Slater, Meredith Prado, Naveen Jain, Sydney Bynes, Blake Jameson, Jason Rodriguez, Julia Jameson, Audrey Vanderzyl, Lizzie Anderson and Emme Le.
The 8th Annual Grant-A-Starr Foundation Family 5K and 1 Mile Fun Run/Walk is back again with a board of exemplary teens looking forward to organizing another successful event to celebrate the life of Grant Starr. The event will be held Saturday, April 2nd at Sugar Land Memorial Park and will include both a 5K chip timed race on the USATF course and a one-mile event. A community oriented post-race party will follow the awards presentation. As always, there will be plenty of food, freebies and fun for the whole family.
Celebrating the life of their son, Grant, a precious seven-year-old boy who passed away from an unidentified virus the summer before he began second grade, Dolores and Rod Starr founded the Grant-A-Starr Foundation. The foundation is a non-profit organization created solely for the purpose of saving children’s lives through the advancement of rapid detection of life-threatening childhood infections, such as encephalitis and meningitis. The foundation provides financial support to Houston-based research projects that are dedicated to the development of rapid diagnostic testing that will reduce the time required to identify an illness and ultimately save children’s lives.
One characteristic that makes the Grant-A-Starr Foundation Fun Run unique is the student steering committee. The committee is made from local high school volunteers who have taken a deep personal interest in the event. This year’s teen board president is Dylan Alexander, a senior at Clements High School. Dylan, who was a childhood friend of Grant Starr, believes that this year’s committee of young leaders truly reciprocates his sentiment for the foundation’s cause. Dylan is motivated to contribute more to his community through the foundation’s events and provide more crucial funds to early diagnostic research.
After seven successful years, the student sponsorship committee, led by Vice President Rachel Wang, is setting even more aggressive sponsorship goals for the 2016 event. Rachel, a junior at Clements High School, said, “We have been honored with great sponsorship in the past. Now we want to take it to the next level! Our goal this year is to raise $50,000 for the foundation, and obviously, we need generous donations from the Sugar Land and Greater Houston business communities. There are many levels of support available, and both businesses and individuals are encouraged to participate. We welcome them all!”
For sponsorship information, contact Terri Wang at terriw@rocketmail.com. To learn more about the Grant-A-Starr Foundation and sign up for the race, visit grantastarr.org.
