Runners Club raises over $4K for Loaves & Fishes

Thanksgiving Day in Ithaca was a bit cold and a bit cloudy, making it the perfect weather for the Finger Lakes Runners Club’s (FLRC) 49th annual Turkey Trot. To join the run, participants were asked to submit a suggested donation of at least $10 to Loaves & Fishes of Tompkins County, and by the end of the day, the run had raised a record $4,250 for the nonprofit.

This year was one of many years that the FLRC has turned its annual Turkey Trot into a fundraiser for Loaves & Fishes. But the run hasn’t always been that way. According to Race Director Bruce Roebal, the Turkey Trot started back in the 1970s, with Bob Congdon as the race director all the way up to 2006, when Roebal took over.

Originally, Roebal planned to keep up the status quo with the Turkey Trot, but that changed in 2008, when he ran the New York City Marathon with FLRC Director Adam Engst.

“One of the sayings was ‘si se puede’ — yes you can,” Roebal said “Almost all people who run in the Turkey Trot, they all go home to food, to good stuff, and the Turkey Trot is free — it doesn’t cost anything to run in it — and so, I thought this would be a good example of some kind of a fundraiser for doing something good. … So, I came up with the thought of, if you can give a can of food, give a can of food. If you can, then then yes, you can — si se puede.”

After calling a few food pantries and other organizations to see who would benefit most, Roebal settled on Loaves & Fishes. Then, in the 2010, 2011 and 2012 runs, the FLRC collected canned goods from participating runners in that year’s Turkey Trot, and those donations — filling the whole back of Roebal’s pickup truck — were given to Loaves & Fishes.

“And certainly, [that] gave us a lot of food to use in the following days in our meals,” explained Rev. Christina Culver, executive director of Loaves & Fishes. “Then, in 2014, instead of collecting canned foods, the organization decided to have a suggested donation of $10 to Loaves & Fishes, and that has been happening ever since 2014. And so, between 2014 and this past year, this past Thanksgiving 2021, the Runners Club has raised almost $39,000 for us — amazing.”

This year, like in past years, the FLRC received plenty of help from area businesses, like donations of breads and pastries from Ithaca Bakery, pies from Purity Ice Cream and apples from Cornell Orchards. While the event had to change to a virtual format in 2020, this Thanksgiving’s run was back to almost normal, save for some capacity restrictions when meeting indoors at Ithaca High School.

Engst said that everyone involved looks forward to the event every year as a way to celebrate community and benefit those in need.

“Thanksgiving is generally a private family holiday,” Engst said. “The Turkey Trot, by gathering hundreds of people first thing on the morning on Thanksgiving Day, expands that a little bit so that the community can have that sense of doing something together as a large group, before splitting off into the small family groups. And I think it just reminds us a little bit more of, hey, we’re all doing the same thing. We’re all involved in it. And of course, the connection with Loaves & Fishes — We’re all going to go home and eat, and it’s nice that we can help make it possible for other people to be eating as well.”

That money goes a long way to support a nonprofit that has consistently worked to provide county residents with free meals. As Tompkins Weekly has covered previously, Loaves & Fishes had to close its dining hall back in 2020 due to COVID-19 concerns, switching instead to serving to-go meals — roughly 1,200 weekly. Sadly, the nonprofit has had to stick with that model the past couple of years.

“We were just starting to plan for reopening our dining hall when the omicron variant came, so that has sidelined that plan for a while, unfortunately,” Culver said. “Everybody misses our community, which we experience when we’re sitting down at our tables, eating inside. So, that’s been a big surprise that we haven’t been able to reopen safely yet. But I think we’re in good company on that one in terms of what our whole country is going through right now.”

In addition to its weekly meals, Loaves & Fishes continues to work with the Tompkins County Department of Social Services to feed individuals and families who are in quarantine or isolation due to COVID-19. Volunteers also happily provide folks that come for weekly meals in need of some winter clothes with items like jackets and hats.

COVID-19 has also had a detrimental effect on Loaves & Fishes’ volunteer options, Culver said.

“We’re in such a transitional, unpredictable time,” she said. “We are continuing our very high standard for COVID safety protocols and are continuing to schedule volunteers in advance, and they have to meet our criteria, which has been a lot different compared to pre-COVID times where people could just simply register online. And it has been off and on. We struggle to have enough volunteers even though we’ve streamlined the number of volunteers that we use a day, which is 14, so that is something we’re in need of regularly.”

Looking ahead to the coming months, Culver said she and others at Loaves & Fishes hope to open the dining room sometime this year, though when will depend on how the pandemic progresses. In addition, Loaves & Fishes plans to provide meals for residents staying at St. John’s Community Services in Ithaca starting later this year.

For the Finger Lakes Runners Club, runners are already looking forward to the next Turkey Trot, which Engst and Roebal expect to be one of the best. Roebal said he expects this year’s run — the 50th Turkey Trot — to be his last as race director. But, as Engst assured, the run will go on.

“It’s safe to say that the Finger Lakes Runners Club is going to ensure the Turkey Trot continues,” Engst said. “It’s not our oldest race, but it is certainly one of our oldest events. And one of the whole points of the club is that race directors need to move on periodically. And so, after Bruce moves on, hopefully next year, we’ll have an assistant race director who can learn the ropes next year and then take over in 2023.”

To learn more about the FLRC, visit fingerlakesrunners.org. Learn more about Loaves & Fishes at loaves.org.

Jessica Wickham is the managing editor of Tompkins Weekly. Send story ideas to them at editorial@vizellamedia.com.