If you didn't know Team World Vision is growing crazy fast. In 2006, TWV launched with about 100 people at the Chicago Marathon. Fast forward to 2008 and TWV has grown to be one of the largest charities at the Chicago Marathon. Runners raised over $1,000,000 for projects in Africa, and people who never thought they could run a mile finished 26.2.
What's new in 2009? Here's the stuff I'm excited about.
- New Cities, New Races. We're going to have teams at events in Chicago, New York, Miami, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Austin, Nashville, Seattle, Ventura CA, Grand Rapids MI, and St. Joe MI.
- Shirts via the Online Store. We quickly realized that individually packing and sending out shirts to more than 1,000 people was a time consuming and tedious system. So we set up an online store. Now, it costs nothing to sign up for the team (so you don't have to pay for a new jersey every time you want to join us for another race or make a new fundraising page.) We think this will work better. Check it out at: www.teamworldvisionstore.epromo.com
- More Church Teams. We love partnering with churches! Hear what some pastors have to say about us here (http://www.vimeo.com/2475144) If you want your church to get involved we'd love to equip you! E-mail Lauren and she'll connect you with more information.
- A new addition to our staff! As the new East-Coast Coordinator, Kirsten will be helping grown TWV in the eastern region. She's an experienced triathlete who has been with World Vision in New York for two years. We're looking forward to everything she'll bring to the team.
- Ryan runs Boston! Ryan and Sara Hall are great friends to us and Team World Vision. Ryan's running Boston on April 20, 2009. We're cheering for you!
And here's what we're hoping for...
- Connecting our runners to each other. What's the best way for our runners to connect? For you guys who want to train together, share tips, stories and pictures, we're searching for a way to set up message boards or a social networking site to help facilitate this. Have ideas? E-mail me!
- More running clubs. Runners who train together for an event have a better experience. We're looking for more people like Chris Miller who can lead training groups and represent TWV to their local areas. Let us know if that sounds like something you'd like to be part of!
- Better communication with the team. When you're part of TWV, you're part of something incredible. We want to keep you in the loop better about new events and ways to get involved. We're working out some changes to our communication plan, and working to make the website more user friendly :)
keeping checking back! Michael, Lauren, Kirsten, and a few others will be keeping you updated with new TWV stuff. We welcome your ideas... please let us know how we can make TWV even better!
