Donate to Disaster Victims: "Register" to "Run" Boomtown 2011!

When we at KT Tape saw Mark Remy’s article about the Boomtown Run Half-Marathon coming up this weekend in tornado-devastated Joplin, MO, we had to spread the word about this opportunity to help the families and communities devastated by recent disasters.  Read an excerpt from the article below to discover what makes this year’s Boomtown Run Half-Marathon so special, and check out the KT Tape Events Page to find out more on how to donate: By now you've surely heard a lot about the devastating tornadoes that ripped through the Midwest… Particularly hard hit was Joplin, Missouri, which on Sunday suffered the nation's deadliest single tornado in over 60 years — at least 122 people were killed, and much of the town was demolished. It's clichéd, but true: The place looks like a war zone. So you can understand why organizers of Joplin's popular Boomtown Run Half-Marathon might have decided to cancel this year's race, scheduled for June 11. But they didn't. Well, not exactly. Instead, says Race Director Audie Dennis, runners (registered or not) are being invited to show up as planned at the starting line — "Memorial Hall, which is currently serving as a triage site" — on race day, to join in a brief memorial service and then "fan out over the city" to help clean up. "The idea came out of an emergency meeting of our exec committee yesterday morning," Dennis says. "We had received a ton of emails from runners saying they wanted to come help, run or no run. While we did not feel we will be ready to host them with a safe, secure run, we felt this would give them an avenue to help in a positive, concrete way." Race officials announced their plan yesterday in an email to entrants, and mentioned another way that folks can help even if they can't be there in person: Of course, we have already incurred expenses for the 2011 event.  Once paid, any and all remaining proceeds from this year's event will be donated directly to the United Way of Southwest Missouri & Southeast Kansas to assist with tornado recovery efforts.  If you would like to make a donation by "registering" for this year's event, registration is still open at www.boomtownrun.com. To read the entire article, visit the Runner’s World website.