Mount Sinai Hospital is up and running

Yesterday was a big day. Over 20,000 participants took part in the marathon, half-marathon and 5K races. Several records were smashed – with new times set for the fastest men’s and women’s marathons ever run on Canadian soil, and the top Canadian runner achieving the Canadian Olympic standard for the 2012 games.

But the best record-breaking stat is this one: more than $2.5 million was raised for 115 local charities (compared to last year’s $2.3 million for 99 charities).

And that’s $2.5 million — so far. The races may be over, but the Charity Challenge continues for another month.

FunRaisers Debra Kwinter and Frances Bartlett are 100 meters from the finish line

If you’re fundraising for Mount Sinai, I recommend sending out two race reports. Write one for your donors, telling them about your event and how much their support meant. Write another one to the folks on your list who haven’t yet donated and let them know they can still support you.

Your earlier solicitation may have arrived at a busy time or while they were on vacation. Whatever the case, most people will be glad they still have the opportunity to show their support – for you and for Mount Sinai.

On behalf of the Foundation’s FunRaisers, I’d like to thank everyone who participated in the Charity Challenge for Mount Sinai. Runners, walkers, donors — you’ve all made a difference. I know that as Debra and I walked those last few hundred meters of the half-marathon, we found it pretty inspirational to think of all the people who had supported us with donations, messages of encouragement, even colourful banners!

 Thank you. You were all right there at the finish line with us.

For the last two years, Cristina Rubino, a York University biology student, has been volunteering in various departments at Mount Sinai Hospital.

“Everyone in Volunteer Services has been amazing and extremely supportive,” she says. “They helped me find great volunteering opportunities with Dr. Keunen and Dr. Walfish. I have learned so much through these experiences.”

Cristina Rubino: student, volunteer, founder of the Mount Sinai Miracles Club and 5km participant

Her time at Mount Sinai has inspired Rubino to establish the Miracles for Mount Sinai club at York University.

“I wanted to do something unique to honour the support and mentorship I have received at Mount Sinai,” she said. “The club’s mandate is to raise money for the Foundation by organizing events on campus.”

For its first event, the club is going off-campus and taking its message to the streets: Rubino and seven others will be participating in the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront Marathon 5km walk this Sunday. Their team, Miracles for Mount Sinai, has been actively fundraising.  

Rubino’s club is planning a presentation at the University’s annual YorkFest. For 2011, the members are working towards an on-campus tennis tournament and social event.

 “I never realized how exciting and satisfying raising money would be, especially when it goes to an important cause,” said Rubino.

Today’s blog post is by Heather O’Brien, captain of the Max and Bea team.

It is all about the frame. Have you had that experience where you see a work of art in one frame and hate it and then you see it framed a different way and you fall in love with it? We humans are so interesting that way. You can take a picture of a human skull, make it pink, surround it with swirls and bling, place it on a child’s sweatshirt and it is adorable. It is all about the frame.

I have been thinking a fair bit about re-framing as I head into the last couple of painful and challenging weeks of my half-marathon training. Great cognitive efforts have been invested in creating ways of tricking my brain to make my body do things it does not want to do. For those of you who are not familiar with my story, running is not my activity of choice. Not simply because I don’t like it, but because health struggles over the years have made running a movement that my body does not do with ease or respond well to.

My re-framing has spanned from the ridiculous to the rational to the relational. For example:

“You know when your struggle will end, and that it has an end … they don’t know when it will end … or if it will.”

“You have to get home somehow, do you want to do it fast or slow?”

“Your body CAN do this, use the movement that wants to be released from the mom with ALS whose legs can’t move anymore.”

“If you get up and run, you get a Starbucks Vanilla Late … Grande.!”

“One step, one action, one movement, one moment … this is how we get through life, the good, the bad, the hard and the easy.”

Heather O'Brien re-frames her training look

“This is not supposed to be easy. This is supposed to be hard.”

“Head down, one step at a time.”

“If I can find the strength to finish this, maybe you can find the strength to believe that life will be okay again one day, and you don’t need to kill yourself when your mom dies.”

“You ARE doing this; like it or not, you are doing this.”

“If spirits exist and you can help me … please help me breathe … please help me keep my body moving.”

“You can only do what you can do; you will run until you can’t and then you will walk till you can run.”

No matter how I re-frame to get through each run, the amazing thing to me is this — we are capable of unbelievable and unimaginable things when our hearts motivate us. When we can find a way to get our brain to release its control and let our heart send the messages, we can do more than our brain could ever imagine.

Move over silly brain, we have a half-marathon to run and money to raise.

Heather O’Brien.

Wow!

 I just went to the Charity Challenge web site to see how many people are fundraising for Mount Sinai and the list of names goes on for 6 pages!

 This is a big, exciting jump from last week. Maybe the fresh, cool weather is inspiring people to trade running shoes for sandals. Perhaps the stories about why participants are supporting Mount Sinai are especially motivating.

 Why not check them out? Click on the link above; choose “Support an individual” or “Support a team”; select “Mount Sinai Hospital Foundation” and hit “Search”.

 You might read about Louise Brown, who’s fundraising for research at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute. With her colleagues in Dr. Culotti’s lab, Louise is studying the development of the nervous system in hopes of finding new treatments for spinal cord injury.

Catherine Hamilton is raising money for The Max and Beatrice Wolfe Children’s Centre, and its renowned grief and palliative care program for children. Then there’s the dynamic Leadership Sinai team, with its ambitious fundraising goal of $20,000, in support of this group’s $8 million pledge to Mount Sinai. And Team SLRI is moving full steam ahead with its fundraising for research.

Roupen Garabedian is running his first half-marathon for his family and for Mount Sinai

Don’t miss the wonderful Roupen Garabedian, a grateful dad who’s running his first-ever half-marathon to thank Mount Sinai for his youngest daughter – born here when his wife Nadia was deemed to be high risk.

 Wow.

For a brief time, some years ago, I belonged to a women’s running group. Before we set out on our first jog through downtown streets to the lake, our coach explained her motivation. “Ice cream,” she said. “I love it, and I run so I can eat it without gaining a gazillion pounds.”

Her story made me laugh, but of course it wasn’t entirely accurate. It takes more than a committed relationship with frozen desserts to become a running Amazon like this coach!

Heather O'Brien is Captain of Max and Bea Team

As she trains to run her second half-marathon, Heather O’Brien, captain of the Max and Bea team, and children’s grief counsellor at Mount Sinai’s Max and Beatrice Wolfe Children’s Centre, looks to her clients for motivation. “When I’m running and I’m thinking of quitting, I realize our kids don’t get to quit what they’re going through, so how can I even think about it?

For race-day motivation, Heather has asked her clients to give her a story about their loved one who has died. “I dedicate each mile to a different person; it gives me inspiration – and distraction! – but it’s more for the kids to feel like they’re supporting me.”

For Heather, using the race as a fundraiser for the Centre “is standing up for what I believe in. It gives me a reason to advocate for our Centre and educate people about what we do.”

What keeps you on the move?