Locals RaceAcross Georgia for House of Heroes The 8 Over 40 in Under 40 relay team raised the
most money in this year’s Run for the Heroes.
by Hayley Blair Though House of Heroes was started in
2000, its biggest fundraiser didn’t come until nine years later when a stranger knocked on the non-profit’s office door. “The Run for the Heroes was started in
2009,” said HoH Executive Director Susan Gerkin. “John Teeples came to talk to us inDe- cember 2008. Didn’t even know him. He knocks on our door and says ‘I’d like to run 270 miles acrossGeorgia and benefitHouse ofHe- roes,’ and, of course, we thought he was nuts.” Though Gerkin was skeptical at first,
Teeples raised about $15,000 that year, which helpedHouse ofHeroes in its goal to help vet- erans and public safety officers in need of basic home repairs. “The first year we had a hard time getting
applicants because it was ‘You’re going to do what for me for free?’” Gerkin said. “People were hesitant, but once we did one house, the
next year we did 12 houses, and the idea has caught on. We have about 150 to 200 people on the waiting list just here in the Chatta- hoochee Valley.” The number of houses has grown in tandem
with the amount of runners participating in the
RunAcrossGeorgia.After Teeples finished his first individual run, he wanted to continue the fundraiser and include other participants as well. “We thought, ‘Well that was a lot of fun.
We did a lot of good helping people, so how can we make it bigger and better,’” Teeples said. “And then the race was born. Every year we addmore individual runners andmore relay teams and, as of last year, we had about 232 participants and were able to raise about $162,000.” The funds House of Heroes raised in their
last run was double what they earned the pre- vious year, thanks in part to the 8 Over 40 in Under 40 relay team, which raised the most
money. “Our two things we planned on doing when
we started was to raise the most money for the charity and to have fun, and that’s what we did,” said Scott McCranie, a runner for the team. The team’s name was based on an idea from
the teamcaptain, Dan Bennet, who wanted to find eight people over 40 years old to run the race in under 40 hours, Teeples said. “It was just an opportunity to make it a lit-
tle different, a littlemore challenging with our age and everything,” Teeples said. “We started about six months prior completing runs every Sunday with whomever we could get together. We all trained during the week individually, but I think one of the biggest things that pre- pared us were our Sunday meetings.” Though Shannon Croft was initially hesi-
tant to participate, she eventually ran 34 of the race’s 260 miles. “My friendAnneMiller askedme to partic-
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