A long-running community event in Altona is undergoing a big change this year.
The Curtis Klassen Memorial Fund (CKMF) committee announced last week that they are officially passing the torch for the annual Run & Walk to Remember to The Community Exchange (TCE).
“This decision was not made lightly,” the committee shared in a statement. “We are deeply proud of what this event has meant to our community, and we are confident that The Community Exchange will carry it forward with care, purpose, and heart.”
The 5k/10k run and walk got its start in 2012 as a way to raise money for the endowment fund created at the Altona Community Foundation in memory of Curtis Klassen, who was murdered in 1990.
Eric Hildebrand and several other friends and peers of the 15-year-old had started up the fund a few years earlier, around 2007-2008.
“We wanted his name to be remembered,” Hildebrand said. “To keep his memory alive.”
In the decades since, the group has raised over $100,000 in Klassen’s name, distributed annually to support grassroots sports, a host of community-focused projects, and education by way of a $1,000 scholarship to a graduate of W.C. Miller Collegiate.
The fund at the community foundation will continue to issue the annual scholarships in perpetuity, ensuring Klassen’s memory will continue to have a lasting impact, Hildebrand explained, but the run and walk itself will now benefit the work of TCE, which in recent years has become a community hub connecting people from all walks of life with events and programming.
The new event will be rebranded Stride Together: Run/Walk for TCE. The first edition will take place on Saturday, May 9, with registration details expected to be released soon.
Representatives from TCE didn’t return requests for comment by press time.
The change is a bittersweet one for all involved at CKMF, but the time seems right as the event’s organizers—after nearly 20 years at the helm—are ready to step back and let someone else take the event and run with it, Hildebrand reflected.
The outpouring of support for both the endowment fund and the run and walk through the years has been humbling, he said.
“This all started with us reaching out to our classmates for the first couple of years with a simple email,” Hildebrand recalled. “And it just grew and grew.”
He and the entire committee send thanks out to everyone who has ever participated in the event as a runner, donor, sponsor, volunteer, or by simply showing up on the day to cheer the runners on.
“We were just overwhelmed by the support of the community over the years, from our friends and our family and all the people that registered, that donated.”
It’s been a fair bit of work, but so worth it, Hildebrand added.
“When the dust settles and that day comes and it goes … our hearts are full to overflowing with the positivity and the memories,” he said. “Just everything about it has been so good.”
