We’re excited to share that the Dee’s are off to Colombia to officially adopt their new daughter, M! We’d originally thought that sometime soon here that when we have a team meeting that they’d be able to join us to tell the rest of the team about their story a bit but unfortunately for us and fortunately for them, a lot of paperwork and approvals came through quickly and in about 10-14 days they had to get everything organized to leave in a hurry.

This has been a long time coming for them and we couldn’t be more excited for them. It was a dream that came to them as a calling and our hat’s off to them for answering that call. Life is a series of calls and when presented with this one, they said yes to it. Their lives will be enriched by the addition to their family and for “M”….the whole trajectory of her life will change and improve as opportunity for her with expand in ways she could only dream now that she’ll have a family to love and support her.

For them and her, Team Runners Doing Good couldn’t be happier.

Now…onto the fundraising update. Through our matching opportunity that we’re running through another grant that they were able to get, our unofficial fundraising total is now approximately…..

$9,500!!!

How have we arrived at this number? It is more than $2,000 beyond our best fundraising total ever! It has been a unique path to say the least. We’ve had a lot of strength from private donors and the unique ability because of that to make the dollars we’ve raised work in ways that we’ve not in the past.

The Dee’s have had a grant that would match what they raised so we saw to it that many of the dollars we raised went to the grant first before they received it. Throw in our donor who always challenges us to reach higher with a matching opportunity as well and our dollars are pretty similar to last year’s numbers, however, as mentioned, we’ve been able to make those dollars count more this year and if it weren’t for the efforts of the team in coordination with the Dee’s, they’d not have gotten this amount and that’s why we’re counting it towards what will be an official total when the fundraiser closes at the end of June.

Also, we’re calling it an unofficial total because we’re doing this all through GoFundMe and Facebook and of course, those groups take their cut so the numbers we’re providing are approximate net totals and we’re still waiting on one disbursement to come through so that we can know what that will truly look like. It should be a shade higher than $9500.

Now…so where are we as a team, today? The $9,500 doesn’t include the costs of running the team. We’ve actually raised dollars beyond that $9500 approximation which also becomes a record for us as it’s the first time we’ve raised more than $10,000 in a campaign whether it was 100% through private donations or a combination of private and sponsorship.

Right now, the team is approximately $350 away from fully covering our expenses and so we are, for the first time, reaching out to you all to help with those costs.

If you are able to help us with those costs, the pledge is the same as it’s always been, we’ll give 100% of anything beyond that, back to our cause of choice, and in this case, it’d be more to heap on that $9500. What we’ve done has helped do something incredible and it’ll help them immensely with the cost of the adoption but they’re still bringing a girl home and what’s often forgotten are the costs of clothes and other things that a person needs as well once they get home.

So, my ask is that if you can support us even more, we’ve got 4 weeks till we leave for the race, let’s cover the team’s final needs for the raise and boost their total!

The only question is can we boost it to exceed $10,000? I’d like to see.

If you feel compelled to donate, please visit:

Runners Doing Good For Dee Family Adoption

Lastly, I just wanted to express the team and I’s thanks for the continued support. This year was a challenge on many fronts. We basically have zero sponsorship because we’re not a non-profit and so all of this has been scratching and clawing to get here. Also, by the time we hit the finish line at Ragnar Trail Michigan, we’ll have run the fundraiser for nearly 8 months as we started this process in November and will finish it just before July kicks off. It’s been a grind to continually reach out and find different ways to keep boosting the overall bottom line.

But through all of this, there have been the supporters we’ve always had. There have been the supporters of the Dee’s that haven’t been with us before, too, which is significant for us as well.

And most importantly, we’ve again been able to make a difference in our community, by directly supporting a family this time in a way that makes our community better by literally adding to it.

For all of that and for who you all are to us, I/We say thank you and that gratitude doesn’t begin to describe the feeling of where we’re at here so far, 7 years into this journey. It’s pretty special and it’s because of all of you.

Now let’s keep pushing because we’re not done yet.

Take Care,

Gabe & Team Runners Doing Good