Last year Care For Paws linked up with Housing for Habitat to make the Home Run inclusive of dogs. The annual 5km run is a way for our service group to expand and become more prominent within the school community, so that they are aware of our group and could then participate in our future events. This is also a method for us to go out and collaborate with other service groups and bring the school community together. This 5km charity run costs 500 lkr per runner and all the money earned is used towards improving the situation at the Januda foundation. It was warming to see individuals paying for their dogs to run as well!

This project took several weeks of planning and communicating with Housing for Habitat as we wanted to ensure that everything ran smoothly. Last year there was an unfortunate incident where a dog lost his life due to overactivity and dehydration. It was a major bump for our service group and personally I was taken aback by the situation and felt uncertain collaborating with Housing for Habitat once again on this event. As a service group, we came to the decision of participating , however, it was clearly articulated that we would be taking all the precautions possible to avoid any reoccurrences of the tragic event. For this we created an advice list which we stuck around school to warn people on bringing their dogs and the sorts of things they should look out for in order to judged if their dog is fit enough for the strenuous run. This poster included like urging them to get approval from their local vet, avoiding bringing certain dog breeds and ensuring their dog was a frequent runner. Such measures were necessary to ensure the safety of the dogs.

All of our service members came to school early in the morning with treats and bowls for the dogs. They were all ready to be set at their stations and to keep a close eye on the dogs. I had to run along with two other of our service members as we are part of sports teams that evade us of the option of not running. For this reason we organized it in a manner that at each water station one our service members would be stationed it whilst Rashmi, my co-service leader, will be biking at the back of the crowd to make sure no dog is left behind. This method of monitoring was a success as no dogs were lost and all of them went home happily and safely. As one could imagine, that was a huge relief.

Personally, I enjoyed the 5km run as they had changed the route of the run this year making it a fun surprise with each corner. I was able to finish at a good time, however, I was unable to time myself which was a bit disappointing. Nonetheless, my soccer coach, Mr. Turner, was happy that I beat him as each year he likes to “race” the teams to see who he can out run. It was emotional reaching the end as I was excited to have completed the run, but I knew this was the end of another chapter – my last ever Home Run. Deep down I knew that moving to college would only allow me to participate in other charity runs and to continue raising awareness in an active and rewarding manner!