Thursday, 15 May 2014 Run for Charity was a non-profit 5k-run organized by Vihara Theravada Buddha Sasana Kelapa Gading’s youth organization called Buddhist Reborn. This event was aimed to boost people’s excitement toward Vesak Day (commemorating 3 important events: Pangeran Sidharta’s birth, he reached enlightment to become Buddha and he passed away or reached ‘parinibbana’) as well as instill the sense of sharing for the needs in the society. Every runner was required to register and pay the registration fee of (minimum 100k), however, all the money raised will be donated to 5 non-profit organizations that help sending kids to school (Pintu Belajar), giving supports to cancer patients (YKAKI) and autism patients (MPATI), building houses for the homeless (Habitat for Humanity), and providing basic needs for the natural disaster victims (Karuna Mitta).

All the committee had a sleepless night because of the event preparation and Vesak sermon at 2am; however, our energy was recharged when seeing the runners’ enthusiastic faces. The temple’s yard was an ocean of people by 6 am and at 6.30am the run was officially begun. While running, the participants stopped in 3 posts. They got some flags at the first, played darts at the second, signed and wrote their names on a big banner at the last post. The run begun and ended in VTBS, surprisingly, the fastest runner took only 20 minutes to finish the run. Some groups of youth were spotted taking picture in the middle of the run and directly uploaded it to the instagram, hoping to win the selfie competition and get a diamond from Frank & Co. Others were also wearing outrageous outfits to win the best costume competition.

Though the preparation was done in a really short period but we managed to get 1200 runners and raise 145 million for donation! We would like to send our highest gratitude to our sponsors (Frank & Co, Bank Mega, Sinde Budi, Nuansa Musik, Chicken Paikut, Lion Air, Daai TV, and Summarecon), policemen, everyone who involved in the preparations, and every runner who willing to do a little kindness that probably means a lot for some people out there. For more pictures, visit http://www.facebook.com/BuddhistReborn

Happy Vesak 2558!

“Because human is not a reservoir of blessings, but a channel to share” – Billy Graham

 

Cheers,

Mickey