Student organizes community event for equality

Now in its third year, the annual Equality Fun Run will take place at the Ithaca High School track June 10. The event is organized by IHS sophomore, Izabel LaForge, who first started organizing this event as a class project in the eighth grade.

“After the murder of George Floyd and the start of the Black Lives Matter movement, my teachers jumped on teaching about inequality, history, and how it affects lives today. I wanted to do an idea that I believed could actually help,” LaForge said. “I decided to do a charity event to help my community and strengthen the support within our community. After we started to get more exposed and taught about inequality and discrimination inside our predominantly white school and town, I was appalled and angry. As a white person I will never understand the full struggles and feelings, but I can get educated and be involved and help in every way I can.”

The event will benefit the Southside Community Center and has grown from its previous iterations. The first run took place online as a donation event, due to COVID-19, where people would run on their own in support of racial justice. It was also a Trumansburg school event, but LaForge transferred to IHS for last year and brought the run with her.

The Southside Community Center is excited to be partnering with a local student for this event because young people’s involvement in activism is important. 

“We are really glad that Izabel reached out to us for this event and hope to see more young people getting involved with us and the community,” said Program Coordinator, Daraisi Marte.

There will also be activities for people who do not want to run or cannot but still want to be involved. There will be ice cream, raffles prizes from local businesses and games to make it an all inclusive event for the community. These events will also be at the track. 

“This has turned out to be bigger and better than we could have ever imagined. At this event, people come and donate money, and run or walk as many laps as they want around the track,” LaForge added. “We also have free ice cream from Trimmers in Trumansburg, and cookies donated from a local business, Emoti cakes.”

While this is only the third year for the Equality Fun Run, LaForge intends to continue the event and hopes that it will grow each year. LaForge has two more years to hold the event as an IHS student and said that she hopes other students will get involved and will be able to pick it up to carry it on after she graduates.

“This event is really important to me and I would love to see it continue after I graduate high school,” LaForge said. “Hopefully I can get friends and other students involved that will keep it going once I’m gone. I’d still like to help any way I can.”

The southside community center also hopes more students will get involved for them to further connect with the community and work with young people. Southside also has other events planned for this summer, such as their annual Juneteenth celebration, which will be held at the Southside Community Center at a future determined date. 

Both LaForge and Southside feel strongly that all community members are welcome and encouraged to get involved and participate. 

For more information about Southside’s events visit their website at https://sspride.org/

The Fun Run will be held Sunday, June 11 from 10 a.m. until 1 p.m. Questions can be sent to izabel.laforge@icsd.k12.ny.us.