Story posted Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Run For Youth Services Sunday
This weekend runners will take their marks for the fifth annual "YOUth Make the Difference" 5K run through Gallery Park and The Glen.
The event has raised an impressive $55,000 over the past four years toward construction of a new building for Youth Services of Glenview/Northbrook (YSGN). Last year the event raised $20,000.
The starting gun will sound on Sunday, June 21 at 8 a.m. on Chestnut Avenue between Lehigh Avenue and Patriot Boulevard. The USA Track and Field-certified race will travel through neighborhoods and around Lake Glenview ending in Gallery Park next to Attea Middle School.
The event will include food and entertainment and prizes by age and gender for those six to 60.
Five years ago, then 15-year-old Glenview resident Jessica Garvey, who had run track at Attea Middle School, wanted to run a 5K race in Glenview. Seeing that one did not exist she worked to organize her own.
The village required a charitable organization to be involved in the event and YSGN was brought in.
Funds for this event will be put toward the capital fund for the new YSGN building that broke ground in The Glen last year.
The original fundraising goal for the new building was $5 million, which the organization met last year. The fundraising goal has since been adjusted up to between $6 million and $6.5 million.
YSGN officials said contracts were locked in at a high rate in the late summer and early fall of 2008, just before the stock market felt its credit crunch while prices were escalating above original estimates.
The other reason for the increased cost, said YSGN officials, is to cover bridge loan interest.
Some of the larger donations were made in the form of pledges paid over time.
YSGN took out bridge loans to cover construction costs until those pledge dollars came in. The increased fundraising will help cover about a half a million dollars in interest on those loans.
The Glenview Journal is a media sponsor of this event.
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