A Call To Action For Our Running Community

We, at Runner’s Mark, are supporting a couple of charities this year and are sharing with you our reasons for choosing them.  We hope that among the many worthy causes that you can support that you will choose one of them, the first is profiled below.

CameronHelps' Team UNBREAKABLE for teen suicide prevention.  There are no more important members of our community than our young people.  They represent our potential, unrealized opportunity, the constant hope for our future.  And yet at a point when everything should be possible, more than 7 of our teens in our community could not see that possibility this year and took their own lives.  This devastating action was also taken in 2005 by Cameron, the 19 year old son of one of our running community members, David Harris (see Cameron Helps History).  Dave’s decision was to take the grief that this tragic event inevitably produced, in order to start an initiative to save our teenagers, one at a time.  CameronHelps is that initiative, developed to improve our awareness of teenage suicide and depression and to provide support for our teens.

Some statistics that you should know about teenage depression and suicide include:

• 2nd leading cause of youth death
• 1 in 5 youth suffer from mental illness.
• 80% of suicidal youth suffer from depression which is a treatable mental illness

So why should you as a runner support this initiative?  CameronHelps has started the Team UNBREAKABLE Teen Run Group.  The project helps teens with mental health issues by teaching them how running improves mental health as they embark on a run program.  McMaster University has started a clinical research study, with CameronHelps partners St. Joseph's Hospital in Hamilton, to help to quantify how much running improves mental health and to report the results in scientific literature. 

We need your help!  Here’s what you can do:

1.      Register and participate in the 4^th annual CameronHelps Team Unbreakable Father’s Day 5k Run/Walk for Teen Suicide Prevention.  With technical race shirts, finisher's medals and post run breakfast this is shaping up to be the best yet!

Date:    Sunday June 17, 2012

Location:  Beautiful Port Credit, Ontario

Registration: $35.00

Where:  Cameron Helps Registration

2.      Consider running and fundraising as part of CameronHelps' Team UNBREAKABLE for the Mississauga Marathon Race Weekend May 5 & 6, 2012.  Come and run your chosen distance at no cost to you!

See Mississauga Marathon for race weekend details.

The benefits of being a Team UNBREAKABLE runner:

·         Free registration or a refund of your entry fee if you have already registered.

·         A great limited edition Team UNBREAKABLE technical shirt.

·         Thousands of adoring fans.

To become part of Team UNBREAKABLE email John at johnk@cameronhelps.ca

3.      If you are unable to race on May 5 & 6 consider sponsoring CameronHelps' founder Dave Harris as he runs his 8th Mississauga Marathon (see Pledge Form)
Please enter the amount you wish to pledge next to CameronHelps on the list of participating charities 

4.      Register and participate in the inaugural Runner's Mark Team UNBREAKABLE Ribfest Run.  The Hero's Day celebration at Toronto Ribfest will feature a 5k & 10k race along scenic Etobicoke Creek and a First Responders challenge on the notorious Centennial Park Hill.

Date:    Monday July 2, 2012

Location:  Mississauga Centennial Park

Information can be found at: Runner's Mark Team UNBREAKABLE Rib Run 

5.      Please forward this message to any runners you feel may be interested in joining Team UNBREAKABLE or supporting these initiatives. 

The money raised will be used to support the teen run program in hospitals, high schools and community organizations in Peel Region.  We’ll keep you posted on the total as it grows. 

As runners, we are a tremendously privileged group who enjoy the blessings of running.  Let us also take the time to enjoy those blessings, remembering those young people among us who can benefit from our help.  Let’s stand with Dave Harris and Team UNBREAKABLE.