WESTFIELD — The 11th Annual Greta’s Run for Imagine will be held on Sunday, May 19. Runners, walkers and rollers are welcome to register for this official USATF 5K through Westfield. Proceeds raised will benefit Imagine, A Center for Coping with Loss, located in Mountainside and Newark.
Participants arrive for check-in at 8 a.m., and a welcome address from Imagine Executive Director Lindsay Schambach will kick off at 8:40 a.m. The 5K will start at 9 a.m., followed by a 200-yard Kids Fun Run dash at 9:45 a.m., for children age 10 and younger.
The Memory Walk will start at 10:15 a.m., and the event will conclude with a dove release at 10:45 a.m. and a free concert by Southpaw until 11:30 a.m. Both the 5K and Memory Walk route will be lined with memory signs, available for purchase by anyone who wants to memorialize a special person who has died.
New events this year include the dove release and the concert by Southpaw, which was named Country Group of the Year at the 2023 Josie Music Awards in Nashville.
Greta’s Run began 11 years ago when a group of Greta Schoenemann’s friends decided to honor her memory with a 5K community race. Greta died on September 15, 2002 due to injuries sustained when a branch fell on a group of students as they were eating lunch outside of Westfield High School.
Proceeds from the race support Imagine’s free peer-support groups for children, families and young adults coping with grief. Additionally, Imagine staff are available to provide support in the immediate aftermath of a loss in a school community, organization or place of business. Imagine also offers griefeducation programs which are available for schools and businesses looking to better support their communities.
Imagine has expressed appreciation to all its sponsors thus far for the 11th Annual Greta’s Run. They include Memory Walk Sponsor: Wiss; Kids Fun Run Sponsor: PSEG; Music Sponsor: Fleet Feet North Jersey; Other Sponsors: AR Workshop Westfield, Eii Electrical Contractors, Ernst & Young, JCC of Central New Jersey, Joely Triantafyllou Real Estate, CLA, De Dietrich Process Systems, Dangler Funeral Home, Michael Robert Construction and Ellie Mroz Design, Family Investors Company, Miller’s Rentals, MTT Memorial Fund, Premier Business Solutions, Prime Oral & Facial Surgery of Cranford, Rossi Funeral Home, Schuster Family Orthodontics, Westfield Pediatric Dental Group.
Sponsorships help to underwrite the event and help ensure that every dollar goes directly to providing free grief support for children and families. To become a sponsor for future Imagine events, contactAngela Marie Tayco at angela@imaginenj.org or (908) 228-3360.
Imagine is a 501c3 that offers grief and loss education and training to the community and free, year-round, grief-support groups for children ages 3 to 18 and young adults ages 19 to 30 who are coping with a loss due to death. Concurrently, support groups are available for the parents and guardians of the children in the groups and are offered in English and Spanish. For more information, contact Imagine at (908) 264-3100 or info@imaginenj.org, or visit the website at www.imaginenj.org.
