Brother, can you spare a dime?

Pssst--Hey Buddy--Can you spare a dime?

I'm in Tulsa Oklahoma and need to get to Uganda. Can you help? Just some spare change?
Anything will help.


Now before you pretend that you didn't hear me and walk on in to Quik Trip, hear me out.
I am part of a group of friends who are Running To Uganda.

Yep, that's a HECK of a long way--8,225 miles--the distance from Tulsa to Lira, Uganda.
Crazy, huh? Crazier yet--we're gonna run back too.

You should know a little more about the friends I run with. Paul Rejda and Jono Becker.


Here is a few words from their Facebook page.

"Run to Uganda" was the brainchild of Paul Rejda and Jono Becker. The main goal of the Run is to raise funds to build a school for Calo Me Lare, an orphanage built by Project Hope Worldwide (PHW), in Lira, Uganda. This page was created to track the progress of our little adventure that we have been kicking around for the past year.

As philanthropic as building a school may sound, the original goal was just to run 125 miles along Route 66 from Tulsa to Oklahoma City "for the fun of it." But as discussions became more detailed, it became evident this would be a great way to raise money for PHW, which both of our families have supported for a couple of years.

From there, it took off at a dead sprint! Jono wanted to set a huge goal. When he mentioned wanting to raise some $50,000, Paul was a shocked but immediately jumped at the challenge. To accomplish our monetary objective, we have recruited a few people to help with some of the fundraising logistics. We are also recruiting a running team of all skill levels as well as non-runners to help promote the fundraiser.

To get the fundraiser started, we ran Tulsa's Route 66 Marathon as a training run and a good place to spread the word to other like-minded runners. From there, our we and our team have been logging weekly running miles with the goal of reaching 8,225 miles - the distance from Tulsa to Lira, Uganda before we run from Tulsa to Oklahoma City. The 8,225 miles is looking too easy for our awesome team so we have decided to make it a "round-trip" journey of 16,450 miles.

With God’s help and a wonderful team of volunteers, we will reach the $50,000 goal by the end of 2013 and Calo Me Lare will be able to build another school to educate their growing number of orphaned children in what the United Nations considers the worst country for a child to be born.

Now that you have your coffee and are on your way back to your car, can I have a minute of your time? I'm TZ and I have a running problem. This run to Uganda is a tally of our running group's miles, and we're somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean right now. But here's where I need that dime. I'd like to use my running obsession to help build this school in Lira, Uganda.
I am running an event in Tulsa in a couple of weeks: Three Days to 100K. This is a stage race, which includes a 25K on Friday, a 50K on Saturday, and a 25K on Sunday. I'd like you to help me out with building this school in Uganda by pledging one thin dime per kilometer that I run, or that same thin dime per mile that I run if the metric system seems to new fangled.

And you don't have to worry about me spending those donated dimes on booze or cigarettes--you can donate directly to Project Hope and every dime goes directly to building this school. The administrative costs, red tape costs, business luncheons, etc, are all taken care of and are not funded by the donations to Project Hope. . Seriously, if you can help out, I'll post how many miles and kilometers right here, and on Facebook. If you'd let me know if you'd like to part with a bit of spare change that's weighting down your pockets ar is spread out all over the dresser or rattling around in the clothes dryer, 1. Comment here, or 2. Comment on my Facebook page, or 3. Email me at trailzombie@yahoo.com, or 4. Don't even tell me and use the Project Hope link to donate. I'll take your change and be responsible, but the Project Hope link is the better way. Ok ok, I won't bother you anymore, although I could use a cup of coffee.