Up & Running
Inaugural Fishers Run 4 Riley Event to Benefit Riley Hospital for Children
Writer & Photographer Kylee White
For several years, the Riley Dance Marathon has raised millions of dollars for Riley Hospital for Children and its cause. This year the Fishers Dance Marathon team is taking another step with fundraising for Riley by introducing the Run 4 Riley event, which will take place later this fall.
“This is definitely going to be a big community event,” says Alaina Koley, president of the Fishers Dance Marathon team. “We want to see a lot of different people from Fishers coming out to join. It’s just going to be a super fun day.” Koley has been a part of the team for five years, including two on the executive board. Koley had the idea to join after watching her sister’s involvement with Dance Marathon and going to a lot of other events with her.
After brainstorming for ways to raise more money for their cause, Koley and her team came up with the Run 4 Riley idea.
“Last October, one of the other Riley executive members and I were thinking of some ways we could fundraise for this year,” Koley says. “One of our ideas was doing a run because we knew that runs are pretty popular in Fishers, and we both had done runs in the past. We figured this would be a great way to be able to fundraise a lot of money.”
The run starts at the Nickel Plate District Amphitheater, and people can register to be a part of the 5K run or the one-mile wagon walk.
“We’re going to have a lot of Riley kids at the event so that people can talk to them and share their stories,” Koley says. “Overall it’s just a good day fundraising for the children.”
For those not wanting to run a 5K, the one-mile wagon walk will take place at the same time. Participants will still be able to donate and have fun at the event while taking a different route.
“It is the same thing as the run, just a shorter route so that all sorts people can do it with different abilities,” Koley says.
For those wanting to get more involved, Koley and her team host more fundraisers through the year and have different ways people can donate.
“We have lots of different events that will happen throughout the year,” Koley says. “One of them is our ‘All Treats, No Tricks’ event that is also in October, which is like a trick-or-treating event for kids. All of our committee members and our executive members have personal fundraising pages as well, meaning if someone wanted to donate to a specific fundraising page, they have the chance to do that.”
All money raised during the Run 4 Riley event (and all events in between) will go towards the Riley Dance Marathon fundraised total in March.
“Last year we were able to raise over $80,000 and this year we are hoping to raise it up to $100,000,” Koley says.
If everything goes well, Fishers can expect Run 4 Riley to return after this year.
“We would love for it to become an annual thing,” Koley says. “We are wanting to see how it goes this year and see if it’s successful, but we are definitely planning on continuing it in the following years.”
Run 4 Riley will take place on October 8, and registration for the event officially opened on July 23. You can find more information about the event, and where to sign up, at fishersdm.wixsite.com/run4riley. You can also find more information at instagram.com/run4riley.
