Mitchell Elementary School’s “Welcome Back” sign could just as well have been talking about the race, which had to go entirely virtual last year because of COVID-19.
By James Kinneen
Hometown Weekly Reporter
After Jess Rice’s mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 2007, she and her husband Bob created the Jog Your Memory 5K and 1.5 Mile Walk in 2014 to raise money for Alzheimer's research.
Beginning and ending at the Mitchell School, that first event featured volunteers made up almost exclusively of Rice family members, and ultimately raised around $40,000. From those humble beginnings, the 5K grew to the point that, while the starting and finishing points remain the same, this year’s race featured over 700 combined virtual and in-person participants and raised over $220,000 for both Alzheimer’s research and Alzheimer’s-related caregiving services.
“We started the Jog Your Memory 5k back in 2014,” Jess Rice explained. “My husband, Bob Rice, and I were really frustrated and defeated about what was going on with my mom. She suffers from Alzheimer’s and we wanted to do something. We knew we couldn’t help her with research, but we thought we could do something in our town. So we started a race in our town and every year more and more people got invested in our cause. We started a nonprofit, and eight years later we’ve raised $1.25m. The first year was only forty thousand, but every year that's gone up.”
On Sunday morning, peach-colored tee-shirts dominated the Mitchell School entrance as over 400 racers and walkers found their pace groups and made their way to the starting line. Last year, due to COVID, the 5K had to go entirely virtual, with runners on six different continents taking part. This year, the racers had the choice of running either virtually (though they could not win any awards if they did) or in person. Despite the pandemic keeping some people away, those 400 in-person racers represent only about 100 fewer competitors than came to the race two years ago, with an additional 300 virtual competitors joining in from all over the world.
About eighty percent of the funds raised are donated to the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund, a Wellesley-based organization founded in 2004 to "accelerate research, make bold bets and eradicate the disease." The fund is unique in that one hundred percent of the money donated to them goes directly to research, because their board covers all overhead. The foundation has raised over $130m for research since it’s inception, much of which has come from the Jog Your Memory 5K, as according to board member John Slattery, it’s the Cure Alzheimer’s Fund's biggest single fundraising event.
“This is truly exceptional” Slattery noted. “What they do here represents the most significant event fundraiser the Cure Alzheimer's Fund has. This is the number one event in terms of what these guys have done in terms of raising money. What Bob, his wife and that board do is remarkable in terms of the amount of money they're able to contribute to research.”
But while most of their money goes to research, having experienced the unique challenges that come with caring for a person with Alzheimer’s, the Rices added another cause towards which the race’s funds would go. Starting in 2017, the Rices created the JYM Caregiver Fund, where about twenty percent of the money raised goes.
“Four or five years ago we decided we wanted to give money to families directly, not just research, so we started the caregiver grant, and we’ve helped about seventy families now in the New England area with up to $2,500 per family, where they’re going through having Alzheimer's in the family and they need help.”
So far, things the fund has raised money for includes bells for doors, respite care, tracking bracelets, gardens, music lessons, iPad refurbishments for music therapy, and helping community centers. And, not content with simply raising money, Jess Rice is even interning with the Needham Council on Aging and pursuing a Master's Degree in social work at BU.
So while COVID could have rendered the Jog Your Memory 5K as an afterthought, instead, as they've done since its inception, the Rices managed to expand it into an even bigger event, going from one that only took place at the Mitchell School to one that could be done anywhere on the globe, to one that combined the best of both worlds.
