Tags: awards, collegepark
College Park parkrun’s founder and co-Event Director Andrea Zukowski has been named as the University of Maryland’s Community Champion for 2017, rounding out a whirlwind year for Andrea.
After starting running at age 49, Andrea was inspired by parkruns that she took part in when visiting in-laws in the UK. She organized 33 trial parkruns in College Park before the official launch in October 2016. Since then, College Park parkrun has become a point of pride for the city and university communities. Andrea missed one parkrun in July because she was in the hospital for kidney cancer surgery. But already the next week she was back as tailwalker, covering the course in 1 hour and 8 minutes.
Andrea said: “Starting College Park parkrun is, by far, the most gratifying thing I have ever done, and I am rewarded for it weekly in countless ways: seeing new faces every week, learning everybody’s stories, and meeting incredibly inspiring people. Our little parkrun community rocks, and it leaves us feeling energized every single week.”
All around the world, we’ve seen over 28,000 unique volunteers in the parkwalker role and they’ve parkwalked over 52,000 times! We speak to one of the parkwalkers, Cathy Hannon, about why she chooses to volunteer in her favourite role every Saturday morning. Cathy’s chronic condition means that parkwalking is the best option for her, she relishes the…
All of the talk around the barbecue during Memorial Day weekend had to do with our huge record breaking weekend at parkrun USA. We welcomed 3,204 runners and walkers to 61 different events from Biddeford to Bainbridge Island. Whether it was your 1st or 101st parkrun, we hope to see you back throughout the summer….
