Project Leader: Bianca Taylor
While located in the beautiful Okanagan with many trails surrounding the scenery, I thought it would be exceptional to plan a community run in the area. My passions include working out, being healthy, and being in the outdoors. With the ongoing pandemic and uncertainty of things, I was unsure if people would come. Although, at the same time, I thought it would be an amazing idea for a stress reliever for people to get outside and enjoy physical activity. Luckily, planning the three runs we did, there were a great amount of people who came and participated in the runs while abiding by restrictions.
While I became excited to have the runs, most of the communication formed through social media, text message, messenger, and meeting at the location. Planning the event was fun as I was excited to encourage others to push their limits and run further, while enjoying the beautiful area we live in. One of my friends came to all of the runs and participated in running 5-10KM with me. It was also nice to have the chance to give out the prizes which made people push themselves harder and compete to win. The challenges that persisted through this event was the weather this summer. The heatwave, followed by the extensive forest fires and smoke made it impossible to continue running outside for the health and safety of others. In the future, I hope to be able to plan and host more runs in the local area. It would be an amazing opportunity to run at a different trail each week, encouraging others to explore. Hopefully at this time we will be able to have more people at the runs, and brand out the runs to encourage more people to come. I am also anticipating that next year will be hopeful weather to ensure we can continue to plan the runs throughout the summer. In the learning process, it took quite the responsibility to plan multiple events (3 runs) rather than just one run at one specific date and time. As I was super busy this summer with vacationing, schooling, and landing a job, I may focus on one specific event in the future rather than different times. In the future, I would love to host runs weekly, but it requires commitment and responsibility, which will be very possible when I am less busy. I would also love to encourage others in the future to join while exploring the beautiful trails in the Okanagan. Overall, this experience was very fun and intrigued my interest to enjoy event coordinating and couldn’t have done it without your help. I would like to thank the Community Foundation of North Okanagan, Small Neighbourhood Grants in the Okanagan, and specifically Lisa Deargle for all of the help, information and guidance. The hard work and dedication to the job does not go unnoticed, and I am sure that all of the NSG Project Leaders think the same on that!
