The running community helping the local community | Sarah Donaghy | TEDxGosport

Key Concepts

• Soul with a Purpose: The belief that each individual has a unique inherent purpose or essence.
• Pay It Forward: The concept of responding to a person's kindness to others by being kind to someone else.
• Food Bank Run: A community initiative where runners collect donations for local food banks.
• Community Helping Community: The idea of mutual support and assistance within a community.
• Resilience: The ability to recover quickly from difficulties.

The Tale of the Food Bank Run

This narrative recounts the speaker's personal journey of grief and resilience, culminating in the establishment of a nationwide "Food Bank Run" movement.

Personal Tragedy and the Genesis of an Idea

The speaker begins by sharing the profound loss of her fifth child, a daughter born sleeping in January 2022. This tragedy deeply impacted her and her family. In the aftermath, she spoke to her other children about their individual "souls with a purpose," aiming to instill hope and meaning. She identified her eldest daughter as having the "soul of friendship," her son for "fighting injustice," her middle daughter as "quietly confident," and her youngest as having "fire in her belly." She believed her deceased daughter, Katie, had a soul meant to "change perceptions," noting that Katie's death prompted others to hold their children tighter and be kinder.

The speaker emphasized that life has "ups and downs" and that their family was experiencing a "downtime," but she believed things would improve. This belief was tested when she returned home from the hospital, feeling "broken." Her neighbor, Ethel, provided immediate support by bringing meals for her family and visiting relatives for two weeks. This act of kindness was deeply impactful, providing not only sustenance but also a sense of healing, both physically and mentally.

During this period, her son, Jack, suggested creating a list of "100 things to make us smile again." Crucially, he also asked, "could we help people like they're helping us?" This "pay it forward" idea resonated deeply with the speaker.

The Food Bank Run Initiative

After the initial support period ended and her husband returned to work and her children recovered from chickenpox, the speaker found herself on maternity leave without her baby, feeling lost. Jack's list, particularly the "pay it forward" item, occupied her thoughts.

She then recalled a past initiative by her running club, where the chairman, James, had proposed changing a training run to collect donations for the local food bank. The speaker, who had been a welfare officer for her running club for over 18 years despite not being a strong runner, had helped facilitate this. This event, held annually in February, had been a "great success."

Following Katie's death, the speaker had withdrawn from all activities due to her grief. However, with February approaching and Jack's "pay it forward" idea in mind, she contacted James about organizing another food bank run. They quickly arranged one for the following week. The event was a "brilliant success," with many runners bringing donations. Witnessing her children serving water to the runners and visualizing families receiving the food, the speaker felt a powerful emotional connection to the act of giving, mirroring her own experience of receiving help. This experience fueled her desire to "tell more people about this" and "get more people involved."

Scaling the Movement

Months later, the speaker decided to re-engage with the world and checked her emails. She received a message from Craig, who had heard about her desire to expand the food bank run. A meeting with Craig, followed by another with James, led to discussions about involving other local running clubs and the wider community.

The speaker felt a strong urge to "make this bigger" and go "nationwide with the food bank run." When asked how, she admitted she didn't know but felt compelled to do it. They agreed to start building the movement in September, with the speaker handling outreach and James and Craig managing media.

In September, as her youngest child started school, the speaker found herself with time to dedicate to the movement. Her initial attempts to contact large running organizations were unsuccessful; "no one would help me." Feeling like a "failure," she sought solace and inspiration. She then searched for "UK running clubs" and discovered a list of 3,500. She contacted the first club on the list, and to her surprise, they readily agreed to participate. This success motivated her to contact clubs sequentially, and by the end of the day, she had a growing list of involved clubs.

A friend suggested she needed a "strap line" and designed a logo for the movement. The speaker spent her days contacting numerous running clubs, and the list of participants expanded rapidly. Notably, many clubs wanted to organize their runs "there and then," rather than waiting for February. The Facebook group for the movement became filled with posts from running clubs across the country participating in food bank runs, reinforcing the message of "the running community helping the local community."

Validation and Impact

A moment of doubt arose when the speaker worried that food banks might not welcome such large donations. She contacted a food bank that had recently received a donation from a running club. The manager confirmed the immense value of the donation, explaining that they had recently had a referral for a family and lacked sufficient food. The donation that evening provided enough to support that family and others in the community. This validation was crucial: "What you're doing is a good thing. Please carry on."

The movement gained further traction through media involvement, including radio interviews, speaking at the National Running Show, and features in magazines. The speaker even participated in a run with a BBC news reporter.

After six months, a review of the movement revealed that over 500 runs had taken place across the UK, collecting 77,000 kg of food, which equated to 336,871 meals. Since then, the Food Bank Run movement has expanded to over 1,500 runs, reaching international locations like Berlin and Australia. The speaker expressed that this growth "has blown my mind."

Conclusion and Takeaways

The speaker concludes by reiterating her advice to her children: when bad things happen, "look for the people helping. There are always people helping." She expresses gratitude for being on the receiving end of community help, a feeling her son also experienced and wished to pass on. The running community embraced this sentiment, becoming the "running community helping the local community."

The key lessons learned from the tale of the food bank run are:

• Life is full of ups and downs.
• You are "never too broken to have help."
• You are "never too broken to help someone else."
• "We are always part of community."

The speech ends with a poignant farewell, "Fly high little one."