Amid the more than 50,000 people running the New York City Marathon Nov. 3, there’ll be at least one face in the crowd familiar to Bowen Islanders.
It’ll be just the second time Damian Leverton’s visited New York and the first time he’s run a marathon. The islander is undertaking the feat to raise money for Komera, which sponsors girls’ education in Rwanda. (If the organization sounds familiar, the annual Rotary Run for Rwanda on the morning of Bowfest also raises money for Komera).
This is the second consecutive year that Komera has been a charity partner of the famous marathon and as a partner it has a guaranteed 15 spots in the marathon. So when the organization sent around an email looking for runners, a friend forwarded the call out to Leverton.
“I’ve been a runner for quite a long time and I gradually stepped up to the point of doing half marathons,” explains Leverton, “But I never really stepped up to doing a full marathon.”
“And my first reaction was, yeah, great thing I’d like to do it one time, but I’m not sure I’m really ready to do it now,” he says. But it so happened that that weekend he was running a half marathon.
“I guess in the end, the endorphins and euphoria of having finished the half, I was like…yeah, I’ll do it.”
Leverton also says that the cause resonated with him as he has a university-age daughter.
“It was one of those, what would it be like, if she didn’t have that opportunity, or it be so hard for to get that opportunity,” says Leverton.
He also knew that this could be his one shot at running the New York City Marathon.
“The sort of times you need to qualify, do that run on your own, it would be very challenging for me to train enough to get there,” he says. “It was a once in a lifetime opportunity to run a very major run.”
The catch for Leverton is that as he’s running through a charity partner, he needs to raise $4,000 CAD for the cause. While when he talked to the Undercurrent, Leverton hadn’t yet reached that threshold, his crowdfunding campaign has since passed $4,000. However, any money donated still goes toward Komera and girls’ education in Rwanda and people can still donate.
“The support I’ve had from Bowen is great,” says Leverton. “If it’s people stopping on the street and saying I hear you’re doing this, congratulations to the people who’ve donated on the site or, or who make positive comments on Facebook.
“Just as with everything else on Bowen, the community support is probably one thing I just wanted to emphasize because it’s been really great.”
