DUVAL COUNTY, Fla. – Sunday marked the end of the “Freed to Run Challenge” where judges, lawyers, and community leaders raised money to support seniors in housing-related civil legal services in Northeast Florida.
The initiative benefited Jacksonville Area Legal Aid’s Shelter for Elders endowment, which provides housing-related civil legal services to seniors across Northeast Florida.
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The challenge began on Saturday with 24-hour and 12-hour running and walking events around the Duval County Courthouse. Sunday featured a 5K run and a bike ride stretching from the St. Johns County Courthouse to the Duval County Courthouse.
Mike Freed, the creator of the Freed to Run Challenge, shared the motivation behind the event.
“For the first seven years, we raised money for pediatric patients in a similar sort of model with running and have to be fully funded with $2.25 million,” Freed said. “We asked Jacksonville Area Legal Aid what’s the next greatest thing that they have it’s unfunded, and they said that our senior community needed the most help. So we’re off to raise another $2.25 million.”
He said the goal for the Freed to Run Challenge was to raise $180,000. By the start of the 5K, the event had already garnered an impressive $165,000, bringing the team closer to its ambitious fundraising target.
“The thing I love so much about this and the way we do it is there’s so much divisiveness in our country right now in our community and this is a great thing that everybody can be on board, nobody can be against and I love that the most about it,” Freed said.
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