TEAM ELEPHANT RUNS THE NYC HALF MARATHON
Wild Tomorrow Fund’s “Team Elephant” hit the streets of New York again this March in the United Airlines NYC Half, raising over $18,000 to save wildlife and wild places in southern Africa. Read more about this year’s half marathon runners and why they ran for threatened African wildlife in our latest blog below!
Elizabeth Lander speeds thru Chinatown NYC, proudly running for “Team Elephant”. Photo Credit: Charles Tibble.
Wild Tomorrow Fund’s “Team Elephant” hit the streets again on Sunday March 20th for the 2022 NYC Half marathon! Our biggest team yet of 15 runners dedicated their miles and many months of training to the support of African wildlife conservation and Wild Tomorrow Fund. Each official charity runner committed to raising at least $1000 as their individual contribution to wildlife protection, with many flying past their goal and one amazing runner, Nick Alibrandi, even tripling it! All together, the team raised an incredible $18,132 for Wild Tomorrow Fund. This support will stretch a long way on the ground in South Africa at our Greater Ukuwela Nature Reserve, and in support of our wildlife partners in the region.
Nick Alibrandi was our lead fundraiser in the team, raising an amazing $3083 with his run!
After a 3 year pause due to COVID, runners were more ready than ever to return to the streets of Brooklyn and Manhattan for the 13.1-mile half marathon stretching from Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, through Times Square, and onwards to Manhattan’s Central Park. Dan O’Malley is a lifelong runner, and said he was ‘honored to run for Wild Tomorrow Fund’ in this special NYC race. For several runners on the team, including twin sisters Linda and Wendy Hapgood, it was their first half marathon distance run - a big challenge. They weren’t the only family team - Matt Lander and his Mom Elizabeth Lander ran the race as a mother-son duo. Matt was also the de-facto team captain, inspiring 4 runners to join our team! For Noah Agarwal it was also a family connection that linked him to our cause: his parents sponsored one of our reintroduced giraffe, named Muki after their beloved cat, and are dedicated supporters of Wild Tomorrow Fund.
“I have always wanted to run on behalf of a cause bigger than myself. I was honored to run in support of the WIld Tomorrow Fund to help make the world more inhabitable for all creators on earth.”
For many runners, it was their love of animals and nature that led them to choose Wild Tomorrow Fund as their charity to run for. Latane Hughes explained simply, “I love animals and want to help!”.
Heather Jones said she ran for Wild Tomorrow Fund, “because animals have always been a huge passion of mine and a huge part of my life. Between working in kennels with strays for 10 years to studying Animal Science at university, I have a big understanding that animals need our help.” Running in the half marathon was Heather’s way to be a part of making positive change for wildlife in Africa.
Dedicated to protecting and conserving wildlife and wild spaces in Pennsylvania, Jeff Steen is a Deputy State Game Warden at the Pennsylvania Game Commission. This means he is a uniformed ranger in Pennsylvania, in charge of upholding the State’s wildlife laws. But his dedication to wildlife doesn’t stop at his state’s borders. Jeff is on the board of Philadelphia-based rhino conservation charity, PA Rhino Conservation Advocates - PARCA for short- and he is particularly passionate about protecting rhinos from poaching. He said that groups like PARCA and Wild Tomorrow Fund are, “the only thing that can stop or slow down the slaughter by providing necessary funding and assistance to the many people on the ground in this war against our wildlife and natural resources”. Jeff joined us in the field last year with PARCA on a rhino-focused conservation trip, to be repeated again this July! Truly a hero for wildlife both at home and in South Africa.
Jeff Steen, a ‘ranger’ in Pennsylvania, is also dedicated to helping rangers in Africa. He visited Wild Tomorrow Fund’s reserve in South Africa last year, and spent time on patrol with our rangers, and helping rhinos together.
Kayla Weatherman is a huge animal lover who has been supporting the David Sheldrick Trust and their orphaned elephants for years. She’s an avid traveller as a well as a runner, and on a very special trip to Borneo got to see pygmy elephants! It meant a lot to Kayla to dedicate her miles to Wild Tomorrow Fund and our wildlife corridor, opening up wild space for elephants and all species.
For runner Elizabeth Kerrigan, it was our work supporting children’s education in our rural area and our support for field research projects, that most attracted her to our cause. Thanks to funds raised by the runners including Elizabeth, we will be able to fund monitoring tags for threatened species in our region - perhaps for a pangolin, or our newest arrival, an African wildcat.
Wendy & Linda Hapgood, Aussie twins, ran the race twin-style, together all the way to the finish line.
Linda Hapgood laughed when her identical twin sister suggested she sign up for the half marathon. Her longest run at that time late last year was only 5km. Her sister, Wendy Hapgood, is the co-founder of Wild Tomorrow Fund, so it didn’t take much convincing - what better goal than to run with your sister while helping wildlife? Linda has been a supporter since day one of Wild Tomorrow Fund. She helped to organize our first fundraiser in Seattle, supports every campaign, and thanks to her company Boeing, matches her donations. Crossing the finish line together is a moment the Hapgood twins will always remember, a proud Team Elephant moment. Next stop - a first marathon for the pair perhaps?
Victoria Herbert waving hello at Grand Army Plaza, Brooklyn.
For Victoria Herbert, her day job also is filled with African wildlife. Victoria works as a senior safari specialist at African Portfolio. Every year she travels with guests to share her passion and love of Africa, its wildlife and people. She said that her travel to see wildlife in Africa in their natural habitats, gave her a deep understanding of “the importance of the natural world and our responsibility as humans, to ensure the survival of all species”. She has seen first-hand how important it is to make sure that communities living in wildlife areas, “know the benefits to them and how they can be invested in the protection of wildlife, for the long term benefit of all”. African Portfolio were one of the top donors overall in support of Victoria.
Wellington Wohlfarth has a passion for wild animals, and has previously worked with a group in Brazil that helped to protect turtles threatened with extinction. Now that he lives in New York City, he was excited to run the race for Wild Tomorrow Fund as his way of “being proactive about helping wildlife”.
Runner Setareh Lotfi is already helping to save wild spaces as part of her work at Google engineering. She extended this help by running to raise funds for our wild part of the world, a biodiversity hotspot on South Africa’s elephant coast - while also keeping her Mom company. Another amazing family duo!
And last but not least, a slower moving member of the team, Charles Tibble, didn’t run. He stood in place and volunteered to catch photos of our runners. Thank you Tibbs!
We are so moved when reading our runner’s reasons for running for wildlife, which they submit when they apply for a spot on the team. It gives us hope for the future - while we may feel small as individuals, together as one, we can create a big impact for wildlife and the causes we care about. Funds raised by the team will make a truly tangible difference on the ground in southern Africa for wildlife, rangers and communities.
If you’re ready for a challenge, join Team Elephant for the 2022 TCS New York City Marathon! Applications and more information here.
Congratulations and thank you Team Elephant!
Go Setareh!
