By MATT McLEOD For the Chronicle
JULY 15, 2009
When runners pound the pavement in a new road race through north Bozeman Saturday, they’ll hit the streets already knowing who the winners will be.
Journey Church is hosting its inaugural Scramble for Ethiopia, a competition benefitting the children of Ethiopia’s Bright Hope School. The event includes distances of 5- and 10-kilometers, plus a children’s race, with the course opening at the corner of Flanders Mill and Durston roads and finishing in Valley West’s Meyer Park.
The 10K begins at 7:15 a.m., with the 5K starting 10 minutes later. The Kids’ Scramble is set for 9:15 a.m.
According to event director Kate Townley, supporting the school became a priority after Journey pastor Brian Hopkins and a ministry team stumbled across the school during a ministry tour last November. She said that in today’s slumping economy, addressing local needs is still a key mission for the church, but that the overwhelming poverty of the Bright Hope orphans pushed the school into the church’s focus.
“There are a bunch of local efforts that address needs here in the community, and that’s great,” Townley said. “But we’re talking about tackling a whole different level of poverty. There are kids in a day-in day-out struggle to survive.”
Bright Hope sits in a crumbling neighborhood on the outskirts of Addis Ababa, the nation’s capital - an area decimated by AIDS, crime and destitute poverty. The average family income in the region is the equivalent to $11 a month.
Townley said that of the 2,100 students at the school, 400 are orphans living full-time at the school n meaning the school has to scrape enough money together to feed, clothe and house the kids around the clock.
Journey is one of several churches around the country that support the Ethiopia Hope project n a program that aims to install a sustainable farm with a clean well, chicken hatchery and vegetable garden on school property, along with a protective wall designed to keep out looters.
The charity is spearheaded by Children’s Hope International, a Christian charity organization based out of St. Louis that has launched similar projects in China, Colombia, Guatemala, India, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Vietnam.
As it stands, Bright Hope can only afford to provide each orphan one meal per day, but school administrators hope that one day the farm will produce enough food to not only feed its hungry, but to provide the school with a steady income from sales at local markets.
Townley, a former point guard and track standout at Bozeman High, said Saturday’s scramble should draw at least 200 competitors. The cost for the race is $20 for adults, $5 for children 12 and under. That means that with the project’s expenses estimated in the neighborhood of a quarter-million dollars, proceeds from the event won’t itself make a major financial dent, but Townley said the impact of the competition could pay off down the road.
“Hopefully this will become a yearly thing and continue to shed light on the cause,” Townley said.
The scramble is the brainchild of Townley and co-director Brad Dolesh, a Nebraska transplant who competes in marathons. Dolesh said he was eager to help after Townley called him with the idea and he began to look into the school’s plight.
“In the past I would have said that it was too far away, that we have enough problems of our own,” Dolesh said. “But the more I’ve learned about it, the more this makes sense. We can go to a faucet and get a drink of water any time we want, and we complain if a glass of water hasn’t been purified 10 times. These kids have to walk seven miles for a jug of dirty water.”
For Dolesh, the opportunity to lend a hand to what he called “the perfect cause” and his experience running marathons created a perfect storm.
“It seems like every time I run I take mental notes about how much better they could run these things,” Dolesh said. “As a runner, the course is supposed to accommodate you, not the other way around. This seemed like it could work because I’ve always had my own ideas about how to run a good competition.”
Dolesh and Townley are hoping for clear skies and a healthy turnout, but no matter how things turn out, the event won’t be all about the run.
“If nothing else it should be an educational experience all the way around,” Dolesh said.
For more information, go to www.scrambleforethiopia.com.