MIDDLETOWN – The day after Thanksgiving is typically dedicated to hitting the stores and checking out all the best sales.
But one former resident has put a new spin on this day with an event that is slowly growing into a national phenomenon.
Track Friday, which took place on Nov. 27, is a day focused on charity and community togetherness. Instead of shopping for the best deals and door-buster sales, participants head out for a walk or run at a local track, park or running path.
Their efforts make a difference for causes they care about through raising awareness and making donations of any amount to those charities.
“I’m a Middletown native, I live up in Cranford now, but after hurricane Sandy, it felt like a million miles to get back to my hometown,” Eric Rubinson, founder of Track Friday, said.
“We were all kind of stranded and a lot of my friends in Middletown were talking about how the hurricane had impacted the area – there were lots of pictures being posted of the destruction – and I kind of felt a little lost … and couldn’t get down to Middletown because they didn’t want people coming into town.”
It wasn’t long after that Rubinson and a few friends put together an informal fundraiser to promote awareness for trustworthy causes supporting relief and recovery efforts.
“I noticed that there were a lot of funds and foundations for Sandy relief popping up days after the storm, so I was cautiously telling my friends not to donate to them until they knew what was going on with their money,” Rubinson said.
“One of my friends said ‘what we can do is promote charities that have been around a while’ and the FoodBank [of Monmouth and Ocean Counties] was the first one to come to mind and I said ‘you know what that is a good idea, what can I do to help.’”
Rubinson issued a challenge via social media on Nov. 4, 2012, stating that if his friends could collectively raise $5,000 by Thanksgiving, he would run a full marathon, approximately 105.5 laps, on his old high school track at Middletown High School North.
“The original plan was for me to run from my mom’s house in Middletown to the Food- Bank itself which was 19 miles and I was going to do it on Nov. 5 which was the day of the New York City marathon and I thought it would just be a good day to be out there running,” Rubinson said.
“What I realized was that it was still pretty dangerous to be out there and I didn’t think I would be doing anybody a favor by running through the streets of Middletown and other areas, so I decided to put it off until the day after Thanksgiving, because I thought that would give me a little bit more time to raise some money and awareness for what I was doing and we picked the high school track because we thought that that would be the safest place to go because there would be no road closures on there and people could kind of congregate there to join me if they wanted to.”
The idea picked up speed, with others starting to commit to laps, as well as supporting the FoodBank and other charities providing storm relief through a giving page set up on the website Razoo.
“A bunch of people got involved … and the next thing you know we had 27 participants and in three-weeks our set goal of $5,000 for the FoodBank turned into a total of $22,000 for 11 charities,” Rubinson said.
Through social media sites, word of month and articles discussing the new event, Track Friday expanded and garnered more attention and funds for charities.
In 2013, Track Friday returned and focused more toward supporting any charity of the participant’s choice. Events occurred in multiple states and more than 300 donors raised more than $15,000.
“We kind of just said wow this is pretty neat … but it almost didn’t take off,” Rubinson said. “People just seemed to forget a year later about Sandy, but what happened that year was that there was a typhoon in the Philippines and suddenly there was a desire for people to help again … and it was at that point in time people started to realize that [Track Friday] is something that could be done annually.”
According to Rubinson, 2014 saw Track Friday events taking place at approximately 20 locations across the country with more than $23,000 raised.
“What we were happy about with the 2014 event is that we were able to exceed our prior year numbers and out initial year numbers by effectively doubling the number of people who participated then asking them to only do a little bit instead of asking them to do a lot,” he said. “That really is the message we want to send to people, that if you engage your community and you give everybody just enough that they can bear without it being an inconvenience, then together we can do a lot and I think that is evident this year.”
As of Dec.3, this year’s Track Friday saw more than 800 donors in 21 states raising more than $50,000 dollars for more than 80 charities.
According to Rubinson, more than $100,000 has been raised since the first Track Friday in 2012.
“It is amazing what has happened … we’re getting inquiries from everywhere and … it’s going all over the place,” he said. “This has really become something significant and we couldn’t be happier about it.”
“We never really set out to be anti-commercialism. I think our message was that commercialism shouldn’t be the thing that defines the day. I think the message is that it is good to do something positive and … we believe that if we flood the market with people who are trying to make a difference then you don’t have to do anything about all those other noises out there with commercialism because it won’t be as loud as the noise that we’re creating.”