Tags are handed out to people as they come to the event telling about the children that are part of Gracie’s Promise.
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TORRINGTON – Tags are handed out to people as they come to the event telling about the children that are part of Gracie’s Promise. After a short warm-up, participants take to the starting line for the group’s annual 5K Run/Walk and pancake feed summer fund-raiser.
Gracie’s Promise started in 2009 when Gracie was 11 months old. She was diagnosed with leukemia and a tumor in her chest. Her church family gave seed money to Gracie’s family to start the organization.
Today, Gracie’s Promise helps to cover the cost for a child that has a catastrophic medical need, outside the cost of medical treatment providing travel expenses, food, babysitters for the children at home when going to treatments.
Gracie’s Promise is not limited to Wyoming, also helping families in Montana, Colorado, Utah, Florida, Missouri and Iowa who are in a family that knows a family that knows a family and so on.
Money is collected from the events they do throughout the year that include the 5K race, pancake feed, motorcycle rally and Valentine cakes in February. This year, volunteers made 732 individual cakes. Each December, the group hosts the Festival Trees, exhibiting donated, fully decorated Christmas trees, which are then auctioned off.
Running the 5K race this year and coming in first ahead of his son, Byron Cronk had a time of 21:36 with his son Weston Cronk coming in just seconds later.
Byron said Weston usually beats him, but he had not been running with his dad to much lately. Weston said he hurt his leg the day before the race, but his dad still would have beat him, because Byron practices more. Weston runs for his school in the mile, 800 meters and cross country.
What Byron likes about running is the finish, that running is a love hate kind of thing for him but is good for his health.
Eliza Bachman used her dad’s roller blades to skate and run in the race, winning the children race.
Her advice to other runners “Push yourself and make sure you’re having fun,” Eliza said.