By Madison Butkus
Hometown Weekly Reporter
The Soles of Medfield Running Club, New Life Furniture Bank of MA, and the Bellforge Arts Center teamed up together to create a Fitness at the ‘Forge event. This event included a Fun Run for kids, the New Life 5K Trail Run, and the Sole of Medfield’s 10K.
Crowds of participants gathered together at the lawn of the ‘Forge, ready to either walk or run in these races. The weather could not have been more perfect, sporting partially cloudy skies and a warm but lightly breezy 56 degree day.
As 5K and 10K participants began checking in, stretching, and doing their routines before the start of the race, little ones gathered at the starting line around 9 am to participate in the Fun Run. This race consisted of kiddos running a short distance down the road, hitting the hands of one of the Medfield High School volunteers, and running back to the starting line once again.
Upon completion of this Fun Run, participants received a goodie bucket filled with some toys and knick knacks, as well as a gold medal.
Right before the start of the main event, New Life Representative Rich Purnell and Soles of Medfield Representative Adam Graber, addressed the crowd with excellent words of thanks and encouragement. “Thank you all for coming,” Purnell stated, “this is such an amazing turnout. I feel like every year there are more and more people who come to our race and our event. We are just so excited to partner with Soles of Medfield this year and offer a 10K as well. By bringing this together, we are just making a better event. So we really appreciate it. I know a lot of you and you probably heard this before but if you could humor me for a second. This race sponsors and supports our operations for New Life Furniture. What we do is take unwanted furniture and we provide it to people in need, people who are transitioning out of homelessness, escaping out of domestic violence, victims of fire, really anyone who needs furniture. I say this a lot but when we refer to our homes, we don’t just talk about the empty shell of the building, but everything that goes in it: the furniture, the people, and the memories. So I feel as if our work is so important because when someone is trying to transition out of a shelter, they are going into this empty shell and we are able to provide the furniture they need in order to truly make it a home. We are able to make people feel complete and provide them with those memories to move on from such traumatic experiences of homelessness to getting back to sustainability. So thank you again everyone for coming and supporting us so we can continue to do our work.”
After both representatives spoke, it was time for participants to start lining up and they were soon off the races! For the New Life 5K Trail Run, the top two overall winners were Flynn Hall of Westwood, MA and Karen Sliver of Sherborn, MA. For the Soles of Medfield 10K, the top two overall winners were Mike Schutte of Cambridge, MA and Ben Adams of Medfield, MA, with the overall female winner being Evelia Sandoval Wolfson of Boston, MA.
On behalf of all of us at Hometown Weekly Newspaper, we would like to congratulate all those who participated in these races!
