AthFest Educates is awarding the organization’s latest round of grants in support of area music and arts education programs. The nonprofit gave more than $40,000 to local K-12 educators and youth development specialists. Jill Helme is Executive Director of the nonprofit.
“To date, we are just over $464,000, which is amazing. To me, I keep focusing on the fact that that means by this time next year we’ll probably hit just over the half-million mark.
AthFest is able to donate the grants due to hosting yearly fundraisers, and while the Music and Arts Festival was canceled for the first time this year, AthHalf is still on.
“A big part of the reason why we were able to do the grants this year is because of the fact that we had people who were committed to participate in the AthHalf Half Marathon and 5k. That race is our largest fundraiser and even though we, unfortunately, had to make the race a virtual race this year, we've had over 1,100 runners who were signed up to participate, which is fantastic.”
There will be an opportunity for socially-distanced in-person celebrating.
“One of the things that we are able to do is to have what we’re referring to as the AthHalf Finish Line Celebration which will be on Sunday, October 25th at Southern Brewing Company. We’re dividing it up to make sure that we have enough space for social-distancing, and runners are coming at a designated time.”
Runners can still sign up for the virtual race at Athhalf.com.
