Every year, the Ithaca College Department of Physical Therapy holds its annual Bomber Blitz 5K run and walk, an event to raise money for PT and clinical research. This year, all of the proceeds from the event on Oct. 8 went toward the VCU-Marquette Challenge, funding PT research.
Established in 1989, the VCU-Marquette Challenge is a student-led fundraising effort that aims to raise money for the Foundation for Physical Therapy Research. The foundation uses all donations to fund research grants, scholarships and fellowships to physical therapy students across the country.
Faculty director Kimber Kurr said October is physical therapy month and that the objective of the event is to raise awareness for physical therapy and help to further its research.
“This is a great opportunity for us to spread the word about physical therapy and fitness,“ Kurr said. “A big proponent of PT is making sure that everyone has fitness opportunities and leads a healthy lifestyle. Running the [5K run] fits in with PT month and it’s a great fundraising event that goes towards future research in physical therapy.”
Kurr said the event is operated entirely by the students of the Ithaca College Physical Therapy Student Association and that they are taking on a big challenge in organizing these events.
“It’s been a huge undertaking for the students,” Kurr said. “They have done all the work making sure they have appropriate consent, contacting all of the different athletic programs, being able to access the facilities as well as finding students to sign up for it and spreading word out to the rest of campus.”
Sophomore treasurer Sydney Jacobs, who was the first-year class representative last year, said one of her roles is to keep track of the funding the program raises, as well as build connections with fellow students across campus and the fundraising groups the program works with.
“Being a part of it is really meaningful because, from the finance aspect, I can see how much money we are raising,” Jacobs said. “It gives me a good idea in retrospect of our impact on all of the fundraisers we work with and the organizations we work with.”
Jacobs said she chose to become treasurer because she wanted to increase her involvement with the college and expand on her leadership role amongst her class.
“It’s more responsibility than I had last year which has been interesting to sort out and learn who I am as more of a leader than as someone who just sends emails,” Jacobs said. “That helps provide myself with more of a concrete reason why I hold the position.”
This year, the money raised during the event will go toward the VCU-Marquette Challenge, a competition that brings college physical therapy programs together for a fun cause. The colleges involved will compete to raise the most money, with all proceeds going toward research efforts and enhancing students’ experiences in the field. To date, the challenge has raised over $4.6 million for research grants.
Jacobs said the challenge occurs annually and that the name of the competition is changed every year to the school that raises the most money. The challenge is especially meaningful to the PTSA as they raise awareness for physical therapy research and participate in multiple events to support the cause.
“The challenge raises money for PT research and obviously that’s really close to heart for our board as we become professionals in the PT world in the future,” Jacobs said. “We go to Syracuse to help at the Special Olympics and we help with other fundraising events, a lot of which are PT related to benefit us as we move forward too.”
Senior PTSA president Skye Krehbiel said that on top of the fundraising effort, another goal of the event is to provide a sense of community among the college, including outside of the physical therapy program.
“Our big goal is to try and bring the campus together as it’s hard with everyone doing their own thing, especially with the PT department spanning from first to sixth years,” Krehbiel said. “We’re trying to bring the students and faculty together. It’s a fun thing to do and sometimes we do raffles. That’s really the purpose of it all.”
Krehbiel said that organizing these events is more individually based, as each member has their own responsibilities for overseeing operations.
“All of our roles are responsible for certain events as our sophomore class representative is in charge of running Bomber Blitz,” Krehbiel said. “We have our meetings every other Tuesday where we all come together and whoever can lend a hand can help.”
The physical therapy program holds several events during the fall and spring semesters, but Kurr said that having the Bomber Blitz take place in October only helps shed light toward a stronger understanding of the research behind PT.
“One of the other ones is that it fits in really well with PT month and spreading the word about PT,” Kurr said. “It’s also raising awareness of some of the principles of PT and our guiding principles about health and wellness for all individuals and the 5k race fits really well into that.”
Isabelle Magre, a junior physical therapy major, said the crisp morning did not take away from the great time she spent with her friends and fellow PT majors.
“I had a lot of fun coming out here today even though it was really cold,” Magre said. “It was so nice to see fellow [physical therapy majors] and other classmates not in the PT department coming out to support this great cause. I’m glad I got to experience it with my roommates and my brother.”
