Salt City Road Warriors raise money for Upstate Foundation

By Sarah Hall

Editor

If you’re looking for some motivation to stick to those New Year’s resolutions, the Salt City Road Warriors may be able to help.

The group, founded by Maureen Clark in 2011, offers runners the chance to train together while doing some good for the community — SCRW helps to raise money for the Upstate Medical Foundation, which administers numerous grant programs for research, education and patient services at Upstate University Hospital.

“In the six years [SCRW has been around], we’ve raised over $150,000 that’s all been spent in the local community to help research, education, patient services,” Clark said.

Clark said she founded the group after working with Team in Training (TNT), which raises money for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society by providing training to volunteers who then compete in marathons, bike races or hikes while raising money for the LLS.  When TNT left the Syracuse area in about 2010, Clark started thinking about another way to marry her two interests: fitness and philanthropy.

“I had been wanting to do something also on my own with a charity focus,” she said. So, with the help of her husband, Paul Madden, “we started it.”

Runners train together — in all weather but lightning — from January through June; this year’s first group run is at 7:30 a.m. Saturday, Jan. 21, at the Minoa Methodist Church, 250 East Ave. Training events are held all over Central New York, from the Jamesville Reservoir to group members’ homes in Bayberry. While the group currently has about 30 active members, Clark said more are always welcome, and they’ve had as many as 70, from marathoners to walkers.

“Just come out and get some exercise and get some camaraderie,” Clark said.

SCRW focuses on local events: the Cazenovia Chilly Chili Run this weekend, the Tipp Hill Shamrock Run and the Syracuse Half Marathon in March and the Mountain Goat Race in May. Their biggest event is the Lake Placid Half/Full Marathon in June.

“Not all members go to Placid. You can be a member and be just a walker, a walk runner, or runner and not do any of the races,” Clark said. “It’s for self-improvement, self-motivation type thing. While you’re doing it, you also know you’re helping other people.”

That’s the most important part — helping the Upstate Medical Foundation, which administers more than 600 separate funds that provide for patient care, awareness campaigns and research. By working with Upstate, SCRW is able to focus on a different area each year. They’ve helped to provide pre-op pillows for heart disease patients, a patient-to-patient counseling program for pancreatic cancer sufferers, research into colon cancer’s genetic markers, a Light the Night event for lung cancer awareness and several pediatric events. That’s been a major focus since the group took over administration of Upstate’s Father/Daughter Valentine Ball last year.

“All that money goes through just to local causes,” Clark said. “We raised over $30,000 with that just last year.”

So where does all of this money come from? Runners pay $40 dues at the beginning of the season, which pays for the team T-shirt and about 18 weeks of training, as well as $20 off registration at the Lake Placid marathon. Team members are expected to fundraise a minimum of $200 per season, which they raise with the help of a fundraising page set up through Upstate’s website. While $200 is the minimum, many runners regularly exceed that—some have raised as much as $3,000.

“It’s a really great group of people,” Clark said. “They’re really dedicated.”

While some have joined the team for a year, others come back season after season.

“I think people don’t like training alone,” Clark said. “This gives them some company and people to train with. It’s kind of like a family.”

For others, there’s more to it.

“They’ve had hardships or people who’ve had cancer or some disease or have died from a disease,” Clark said. “It really makes them feel like they have some control, like they aren’t powerless in the face of some of that adversity. It helps them feel like they’re fighting against it. They can’t fix what happened, but they can help others in the process.”

To learn more, contact Clark at [email protected].