Patrick Downey 5K

“Maybe someday there will be a Patrick Downey 5K.”

That’s what I said to Patrick when he complained that everybody knew about breast cancer because of the Komen Race for the Cure 5K and nobody knew about esophageal cancer.  The race ran from 2010 – 2014 and we accomplished a lot in those four years.

In four years, I have donated over $31,000 to the Esophageal Cancer Awareness Association. That is an unbelievable number. And to help you to understand exactly how valuable this is, consider this. I gave $11,000 to ECAA in 2014 alone. In December of 2014, ECAA made a donation to the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center of $16,000 that helped to finalize a study specifically about esophageal cancer. The donation from the Fourth Annual Patrick Downey 5K was a big portion of that and allowed the researchers to finish important work regarding esophageal cancer. And that is what this is all about.

Some race highlights:

• Race registrations rose from 180 to over 300 in four years
• Race finishers have gone from 136 to 250 over that time
• In 2011, Converse joined as a major corporate sponsor, providing a cash donation and lots of cool giveaways including gift cards, cinch saks, keychains and FREE Chucks
• The race was featured in the Oct 2011 edition of Runner’s World as a race that had “sweet swag”
• We gave over $31,000 to ECAA from the race alone

If you want to review all the race results and see pictures from all the races, please visit the Patrick Downey 5K Facebook page.