Sports Management Club Fundraises with First Ever 5K

By Susan Ambrose
SC Contributing Writer

On Sunday, April 26, ESU’s Sports Management Club (SMGT) held their first ever 5K walk/run to benefit the St. Baldrick’s foundation for pediatric cancer. The Sports Management Club, comprised of ESU’s sports management majors, held the event at Eiler-Martin Stadium, and hope to make it an annual affair.

The 5K was the second fundraiser event SMGT has held this semester. In March, SMGT held a basketball tournament in the Zimbar-Liljenstein gym as a fundraiser for the same cause.

In the future, the SMGT hopes to make their fundraiser into a semester-long or yearlong series of events, with an overall winning team at the end of the series.

They hope to include many different sporting events as part of their series in coming years.

On Sunday, participants could race as a team or as individuals, and teams competed for points, with the winning team receiving the grand prize of a three-month membership to the Stroudsburg YMCA.

Some local Stroudsburg and East Stroudsburg businesses donated small prizes such as Tshirts and gift cards to be given out for fun. These supporting businesses included Cluck-U Chick, Wawa, Stroud Cross-Fit, and Marita’s Cantina.

The 5K was a collaborative effort of the members of ESU’s SMGT club, headed by student Michael Honeywell, advisor Professor Edward Arner, and Sports Management department chair Paula Parker.

Distance track athlete and SMGT club member Chris Ott planned the 5K course, which began at the Eiler-Martin Stadium and looped through campus for a finish in Campus Circle.

The money raised through this tournament series will be donated to St. Baldrick’s Foundation, which raises money for childhood cancer research. In fact, St. Baldrick’s Foundation is the single largest private funder of childhood cancer research grants.

ESU students may have seen the name St. Baldrick’s around campus before, as earlier in the semester the foundation held one of their famous head-shaving events right here on campus. The St. Baldrick’s Foundation was born by this fundraising back in 1999.

St. Baldrick’s website states that only 4 percent of U.S. federal funding is solely dedicated to childhood cancer research. For this reason, fundraising events like that of ESU’s SMGT are a major contribution to the fight against childhood cancer.

SMGT has and will to continue to exemplify St. Baldrick’s mission of promoting community and student involvement in worthy cause.

Be sure to like “The Inaugural ESU SMGT Challenge Tour” on Facebook to stay in the loop for future SMGT events.

Email Susan at:
sambrose2@live.esu.edu