It's been three months since Hurricane Sandy battered Long Island, and the Long Beach community is still feeling the lasting effects -- the main reason why resident Robin Lynch will be running in the 2013 Boston Marathon on April 15.
Lynch will be participating in the marathon for Dream Big!, a Massachusetts-based charity dedicated to providing underprivileged girls the opportunity to participate in sports. Part of the money raised will go to Long Beach, but how Lynch got to that point is the interesting part of the story.
She was originally scheduled to run the New York City Marathon this year, and while it was ultimately canceled, Lynch said she wouldn't have done it anyway.
"I had previously made the decision not to run so that I could focus on helping my fellow Long Beach residents get back to some sort of normalcy," Lynch said. "I also did not feel it was right to pull much-needed resources away from recovery efforts for the marathon."
Three weeks later and Lynch got an email from Dream Big! in regards to her Boston Marathon charity application. However, after careful consideration, Lynch decided that running in the marathon wasn't the right thing to do.
"In light of everything that was going on in Long Beach, I didn't think it would be right for me to raise funds for a Massachusetts organization," she said.
After explaining her situation to Linda Driscoll, founder of Dream Big!, the charity offered a compromise -- a big one.
Driscoll spoke with the foundation's board and quickly came back with good news. She told Lynch that 80 percent of the money that was raised could go to Long Beach, with the other 20 percent going to Dream Big!
"I was absolutely floored," Lynch said. "I thought I was dreaming and I broke down crying."
The money raised will go to providing girls and the programs that serve them -- in storm impacted areas in New York -- with equipment grants and program scholarships.
"I'll be working with local coaches -- little league coaches, some of the school coaches and the recreation director -- to identify girls that might have lost sporting equipment during the storm or cannot participate in a sport because right now their parents can't afford $100 or whatever it is to enter them in a program," Lynch said.
Thus far, Lynch has raised $2,600 raised out of the required $4,000, however, she said she would like to raise a total of $5,000.
Readers can visit Lynch's donation page by clicking this link: http://www.razoo.com/story/Helping-Long-Beach-Recover-By-Dream-Big
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