Supporting Veterans By Supporting Their Families
https://www.crowdrise.com/FitworksFitnessMarathon
This Sunday, I put together a fitness marathon fundraiser to honor fallen soldiers that were close to those in our Cleveland community and raise money for the loved ones they left behind. All donations go to Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (www.taps.org) which puts on grief camps for the families of fallen soldiers. I volunteered when I was at Ft. Hood and am doing it again in July when I move to Boston.
Since I'm CrossFit certified, we did a hero workout. Each soldier had an exercise dedicated to them. Chris was a badass and was part of 82nd Airborne so we did 82 burpees for him. Laura was the first female casualty in Afghanistan and was a 12A (an engineer officer like myself) in the 555th Engineer Brigade (also like me) so we did 12 sets of 5 power tucks, 5 basketball jumps on the left side and 5 basketball jump on the right side. (12x5x5x5). Adam was in the 4th Cavalry and died on the 28th so we did 4x28 sit ups for him. Nigel and Dimitri were in 3/25ID so we did 3 sets of 25 reps push ups and arm circles. SPC Neff and SGT Rimer were in the 4th Engineer Battalion and were killed in the 22nd so in their honor we did 4 sets of 22 reps of lunges and squats. Lastly, we did 22 knee ins/leg raises to remember the 22 veterans a day who take their own life.
It was amazing. I did it 3 times throughout the day and we took pictures and videos of the workouts and sent them to the families that were interested (some people prefer not to be contacted and I respect that) so that they could see their soldier's legacy was living on and their story was being told. I talked about the soldiers that I had known and lost and we also had another veteran whose platoon leader and battle buddy (SSG Nigel Kelly and 1LT Dimitri Del Castillo) had been killed talk about what amazing fathers, husbands and soldiers they had been.
It was an absolutely unbelievable day and each time I did the workout, I got to tell more people about these amazing soldiers. I am very honored to have been a part of this.
If you are interested in donating, please go to https://www.crowdrise.com/FitworksFitnessMarathon
You have touched more lives than you'll ever know. So proud of you!