{"id":23693,"date":"2019-05-02T12:06:03","date_gmt":"2019-05-02T16:06:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=23693"},"modified":"2019-05-09T16:37:36","modified_gmt":"2019-05-09T20:37:36","slug":"thousands-turn-out-for-annual-run-or-walk-for-southlake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/thousands-turn-out-for-annual-run-or-walk-for-southlake\/","title":{"rendered":"Thousands turn out for annual Run or Walk for Southlake"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Jake Courtepatte<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rain or shine, one thing is for certain:\nthe annual Run or Walk for Southlake has York Region residents coming out in\ndroves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Close to 1,700 people turned out for\nSunday\u2019s annual event, taking to the streets of Newmarket around the Region\u2019s\nhospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luckily for this year\u2019s pack of runners,\nthe sun was out on a chilly April morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Held in Newmarket for the third year,\nracers and cheer squads alike gathered at Newmarket\u2019s Seniors\u2019 Meeting Place before\nfollowing a five-kilometre path down Davis Drive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boasting a lofty fundraising goal of\n$200,000, the largest ever for the event, the total is close and still rising:\nover $177,000 has been raised at press time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Southlake Foundation president Susan\nMullin said security measures were increased this year to allow for a larger\nattendance, after seeing around 1,500 racers take to the course last year,\nwhich closes down a stretch of Davis Drive to allow for the course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Cancer Centre Cruisers once again\nset the bar for team funds raised, topping the list at around $20,000 raised to\nwin the Team Challenge. Team Aurora was at the top of the list for the Mayor\u2019s\nChallenge, a fun and friendly competition between the mayors of the York\nmunicipalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m not going to lie, I\u2019m exhausted,\u201d\nsaid Mayor Tom Mrakas, who led the way in bringing in close to $10,000 for the\ncause. \u201cBut I want to take a moment to thank everyone, for all the support they\ngave to Team Aurora and myself. We won the Mayor\u2019s Challenge, we\u2019re very proud\nof it, and we\u2019re very proud to support our hospital, Southlake.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

King Chicks and Jocks, led by King Councillor\nAvia Eek, finished a close second in the mayoral race, raising around $10,000\nin total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the first runners pulling up to a\ncheering crowd at the finish line around 9:30am, family and friends were\nentertained by George St. Kitts, a Juno-nominated Motown artist from Toronto,\nat the Centre\u2019s Athlete Village.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Run or Walk for Southlake is the\nlargest community fundraiser held annually by Southlake Foundation, raising\nvital funds to purchase new and replacement equipment across the hospital.\nCurrent equipment needs include anesthesia machines, operating room lights and\nhospital beds and mattresses, all critical elements to providing world-class\ncare to Southlake\u2019s patients in York Region and the surrounding communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having flourished into the grand\nspectacle it is today since its beginnings in 2002, the bar has been raised\neach year in terms of raised funds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now in its seventeenth year, the event\nhas raised over $1-million netted in its span.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the inception of the Southlake\nFoundation in 1980, the parent organizer of the annual event, more than $100\nmillion has been raised for the Centre.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donations can still be made at\nwww.southlakefoundation.ca.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rain or shine, one thing is for certain: the annual Run or Walk for Southlake has York Region residents coming out in droves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":23689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23693","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/2019-05-02-02.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-6a9","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-14 15:00:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23693","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23693\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}