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10 years 10 stories (9) A marathon became a run of a life time

May 7, 2011 18:33 by author

Xin.Ge

What took Rich Hoeg, a grandfather and a senior technical manager at Honeywell Corp., to take a journey that joined with CTEF’s efforts to help the kids in rural China?

In 2006, Rich’s journey began at a Wikipedia conference hosted by Harvard Law School, when he met Dongjin Cai, a long-time CTEF board member and CIO at the time. Knowing Rich would run Grandma’s Marathon at Duluth, Minnesota, Dongjin challenged him, “Why not actually do something useful rather than just running 26.2 miles? Could you build a new school along with CTEF for the kids of a remote village in Southern China?” At that moment, Rich did not have much connection with China, except that his father had served as a Marine Corps doctor during the Korean War, but Rich and his wife Molly both strongly believed education is the key to happiness and they resonated with CTEF’s mission. So Rich launched his campaign for the kids in China. Engaging family members and friends, advertising on his blogs, he told others that his run was to help build a school for the kids in Lingyun County, GuangXi Province, China. When Rich successfully finished his run in June 2007 and met his goal in raising the majority of the funding for rebuilding the YanLao School in JiaYou Town, Lingyun County, he was so happy because he knew CTEF could soon start rebuilding the school.

Rich’s Marathon run did not stop when he passed the finish line. In September 2007, Rich and Molly took a trip to visit the newly constructed school in a mountainous village in Lingyun. It’s a long trip from Rich’s home in Minnesota. Especially the last several hours’ ride on the curvy and bumping roads to the school was tiring and somewhat dangerous. Rich had the SUV stopped when they got close to the destination and ran the last one mile to the school. When he dashed into the newly built school and was warmly welcomed by the young students, he had tears in eyes and enjoyed one of the most moving experiences of his life. There, he finally officially finished his Marathon run, while.

Rich attended the ceremony to dedicate the new school building of YanLao School on that day, but his journey did not end there. He subsequently visited another elementary school in the nearby mountainous village Jiangcun, and learned that the young boarding students there urgently needed a new dorm and a new kitchen. Back to home in Minnesota, Rich and Molly always thought about helping the students at Jiangcun and they had new plans. Rich launched a Kilometers for Kids Project, starting with participating in Mora Vasaloppet in February 2008, a 42-kilometer cross-country event. As Rich commented he had not competed in cross-country ski race for 30 years. At 52-year old, to compete at such long distance ski races in frigid cold was absolutely a big challenge. Rich highlighted this fact in his campaign, urging people to support his project at Lingyun. On the day of Mora Vasaloppet, the temperature was at -13 F and “dangerous winds” producing a windchill of -40 F. Rich was able to complete the course successfully and safely. He later wrote, “Our real motivation, however, was thinking about the children in the dorm in LingYun. Braving a few hours of adverse weather seemed small in comparison to the cold weather they face all winter long in an inadequate dorm building. It brought to home the need for them to have their own protection from the weather on a daily basis. With improved housing, the young students will be better prepared to benefit from their education as well.” With this race and another 3 loppet races in the following winter, and Boston Marathon 2009, Rich and Molly were able to raise a significant amount of funds to start their planned school renovation projects at Lingyun. He had skied 52 kilometers in one race and in another race he had to ski with one arm after he broke his thumb and tore a ligament in a practice ski.

Besides raising the funds for the school construction projects, Rich and Molly donated books to the Lingyun schools and collected used Legos for those Lingyun kids to enjoy the fun of building. And with their daughter Karen’s help, during their trip to visit the Lingyun schools, they brought over a packet of letters from the children at Grainwood Elementary in Prior Lake, Minnesota to the kids.

As CTEF’s Midwestern representatives, Rich and Molly have been paying close attention to the progress made at CTEF to help the kids in rural China. They have launched special fundraising for Sichuan earthquake relief and have referred CTEF to other funding sources. It has been a life time journey.