Team Long Run

It’s our 5th birthday here at Team Long Run! We wish we could show you all the kids your support has cheered, helped, and inspired. We can’t do that, but we can tell you how much it means to them and their families, as well as to the teachers and caregivers who see the ways in which our programs are helping kids here in rural Maine, and we thank you. You can grow some deep roots in five years, and we are beginning to see the fruits of our work. Work that can only happen with your support. So thank you! From our team at Team Long Run, and all the kids we serve.

Team Long Run Treks serve two purposes: they are loads of fun in beautiful places and they raise money for our programs back home in rural Maine! It’s a win/win. Our week hiking the Pembrokeshire Way in Wales is coming to a close. We’ve had wonderful hikes along the coast and are now off to London ! Cheerio. --Hilary Harper-Wilcoxen

Some fun news from Hilary Harper-Wilcoxen

We’re getting there! At this posting, we only need to raise $6,000 more to reach our goal of $19,200! That wasn’t a random number. It’ll fully fund 400 Head Start families we work with here in rural Maine. We're getting books and active-play programs into both homes and Head Start classrooms through our Barclay’s Book Fun! program and our popular Sizzle and Pop active-play program! With your help today, we can reach that goal and get books to kids who have few, if any. Books in the home is one of the leading factors in getting kids ready to read. We’ve been able to get almost 4,000 books to kids in our rural Head Start centers over the last three years because of our generous donors! If you’ve already given, thank you!  If not, please consider making a gift today. We thank you! Hilary and Chuck

Here goes! We're officially asking you to donate to our Giving Tuesday Campaign! We've made a little video to show who really benefits from your donation! We're hoping to raise $19,200. That will get 3 books to 400 Head Start kids here in rural Maine. We get the right books to the right kids, kids who have few if any books in their home. We pair that with active play programs and read-alouds on our YouTube channel, and all sorts of other cool stuff. The bottom line is, it's working! We've given away over 11,000 books to over 2,000 kids in the last four years and we plan to keep doing it as long as we can. Thank you for making that possible!

I’m sure it’s no accident that Giving Tuesday occurs just after Thanksgiving. Giving is such a graceful and grateful response to receiving.    To begin with, thank you. We are so profoundly grateful for what we’ve received. We are also very grateful for the opportunity to give, fully aware that it’s only possible because of the many people who support Team Long Run financially.   It seems like Giving Tuesday “alerts” from nonprofits keep creeping earlier and earlier each year… like hearing Christmas carols in October. We get it. We have a lot riding on the gifts, small and large, that our Giving Tuesday campaign yield.  We look at every gift as another kid, or number of kids, that we can help achieve success, in spite of their circumstances.  In a very real sense, it’s not dollars for us, it’s kids.   So, please stay tuned for our upcoming appeals for your support. If you’d like to give early, we’re ready for that, too. Thank you so much.   Hoping you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.   Love, Hilary and Chuck

Our good friend and generous supporter, author Rosemary Wells, has donated original cover art from her best-selling classic Noisy Nora to Team Long Run for use in our upcoming Giving Tuesday campaign. She'll personalize it, and then we'll send it to whoever makes the largest contribution between now and December 1st. It's a great opportunity to chip in and support our work, and perhaps end up with one of the most fun characters in Children's Literature. Please share this if you grew up having Noisy Nora read to you, or if you were lucky enough to read it to a child. Cheers!