Modesto Memorial Classic run, walk this weekend

Hundreds will run – or walk – for a good cause as the ShadowChase Running Club sponsors its annual Modesto Memorial Classic.

Make that two good causes. Proceeds from the 5-kilometer race and 1-mile run/walk on Saturday, May 23, at Tuolumne River Regional Park will be split between the Modesto Vet Center and local junior high and high school cross country and track programs.

The event is one of ShadowChase’s oldest runs, according to race director Barbara Miller. It started out as the Modesto A La Carte Festival Run in Tuolumne River Regional Park in the late 1980s or early ’90s, she said in an email, then moved to downtown as the Modesto Graffiti Run.

“When the Graffiti Festival was discontinued, we moved it back to Tuolumne Park and renamed it the Modesto Classic. In 2012, we decided to make it patriotic in keeping with Memorial weekend,” Miller said. “ShadowChase member Brandon Hunt had just returned from serving with the Army in Iraq. The vet center helped him with readjusting to civilian life. He recommended we designate them for our charity. We changed our name to the Modesto Memorial Classic and started working with the vet center.”

The event usually attracts 400 to 450 runners, she said. This year, the Central Valley Veterans League is holding a pancake breakfast, with all proceeds going to the vet center. The breakfast is included in the entry fee for runners and is $5 for nonrunners. Veterans who run get $5 off their entry fee.

A free kids fun run for age 10 and under also will be part of the event.

The Memorial Classic is for everyone with all abilities, Miller said. Modesto Mayor Garrad Marsh, a Vietnam War veteran, will be the official 5K starter, and special honors will be offered to vets after the runs.

“The vet center depends on events like the Modesto Memorial Classic to provide funds for their recreational and social activities,” Miller said. “The Modesto Memorial Classic is their biggest source of funds for this.”

The Modesto Vet Center is part of the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs, one of 300 such centers in the country, according to vet center team leader Stephen Lawson. The center provides treatment for combat and other traumas and bereavement counseling for loved ones of service members who die while on active duty.

Recreation and social activities help the center to “widen and deepen and strengthen our support systems by building a healthy, healing community,” Lawson said.

“What you have is a situation where most combat veterans – it doesn’t matter the gender or the war – get home and very much isolate. Their support systems are very small because after discharge, the buddies they served with go home and get back to their lives,” he said. The center helps to reduce that isolation through programs not just for the veterans, but their families, as well.”

“The challenge that I’ve had … was to help our community to be part of us, and us be part of the community, and that’s happened,” Lawson added, with events like the ShadowChase run, car shows and other events promoted by a variety of local organizations.

This story was originally published May 18, 2015 at 2:22 PM with the headline "Modesto Memorial Classic run, walk this weekend."