For families and runners, it’s a chance to compete in a 5K, 10K or 1-mile walk as well as enjoy brunch, inflatables and face-painting.
For the Diaper Bank of the Ozarks – and all 49 Ozarks children’s charities – it could mean so much more.
That’s why the non-profit is excited about the inaugural Diaper Dash & bRUNch Bash, set for 7 a.m. Saturday beginning at the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame. It’s an event of the PGA Web.com Tour’s Price Cutter Charity Championship presented by Dr Pepper, which is benefitting 49 charities this year, including the Diaper Bank. CoxHealth is among the sponsors, and Gailey’s Breakfast Café is serving breakfast.
To register, visit DBODIAPERDASH.ORG.
“We are the voice of that baby that cries,” said Jill Bright, Executive Director of the Diaper Bank of the Ozarks.
The Diaper Bank of the Ozarks, which joined the PCCC this year, has made quite an impact since Bright founded it six years ago. Her hope was to assist low-income families.
It now supplies diapers to 40 partner agencies in Greene County and 46 rural partners in 32 southwest Missouri counties. Additionally, it offers a cloth diaper loan program, noting that it reaches 150 families and helps each save $1,000 on diaper expenses.
All this for an organization that employs the equivalent of two full-time staffs and a full-time volunteer, Bright.
In her office, she has a poem that reads, in part:
“To us this is just a diaper … To our families it is so much more … It is reassurance that my baby can go to daycare so that I can work and bring home a paycheck.”
For years, Bright was eager to partner with the PCCC as a way to boost Diaper Bank as a household name, and now look. Saturday marks the first brunch bash in Springfield and continues the PCCC’s annual fun run, which is back at Highland Springs Country Club for the first time since 2014.
The course will run through Highland Springs, and brunch follows. In fact, it includes Mother’s Brewing beverages and mimosas for adults. Faux-mosa stations will be on the course. For children, the event features inflatables and face-painting after the run.
Entry fees are $30 for the 5K, $35 for the 10K and $20 for the mile walk/run. Add $5 for race-day registration, which runs from 5:30 a.m. to 6:45 a.m. All participants receive a T-shirt and medal, with trophies to the top three men and women in both the 5K and 10K.
“This event is so exciting for us because of the old and the new,” said Kari Norris, Marketing and Branding Director of the PCCC. “We are happy to be back ‘home’ running the event out of the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame, running through Highland Springs, excited to have Gailey’s back involved with the event as well as Cox. We also are very excited about all of the new things. The new brunch element of the event, the new sponsors and the new relationship with Diaper Bank of the Ozarks.”