Ready for Fundraising!

Today is the day that we got together for Team Palestine.  We were at Rush Studios today (1600 S. Halsted, Chicago...great photographers and videographers) for our first meeting.  It was great to see about 30 or more people in one room together to run and raise money for an event.  I also learned a bit more about the charity I was running for. 


Palestinian Children's Relief Fund's mission is to aid children in Palestine (duh).  How do they do it is the question.  They send doctors who volunteer their time and their skill on these kids.  They don't get paid any amount to perform brain surgery on a child who was born with a defect, or plastic surgery on a child who was burned by a land mine.  With the money that is donated, they go and do all this.  In weeks time, these doctors can perform around 100 or so surgeries! That's amazing that there are people in the world to donate their time from their own lives to help others in need.

So here is where you come in.  Make this happen:
http://www.firstgiving.com/fundraiser/randamahmud/chicagomarathon2012


My goal is $600 but I sure as hell would love to exceed that!!!

I'm also going to be on RiseUP Radio this week (Sunday, March 4, 2012) at 12 PM Central, on 750 AM! I'll be talking about being first time runner and what I'm doing to prepare for this! Oh boy! This blog is one of them! 

Why Am I Running A Marathon? I Smoke!

Hi.  My name is Randa.  I'm a smoker, a social drinker, have the mouth of a trucker, work out moderately, workaholic, eat like a beastly man, have an active social life, HATE running (with a capital H.A.T.E.) and am running the Bank of America Chicago Marathon in 2012.  You can say a couple things about me.  Acutally, I'll help you out:  "Nutjob", "Crazy", "Insane", "Dumb", "When are we planning your funeral?", "Are you sure you can do this?", "Can you do this?" and my personal favorite, "You can't do this".  I pretty much have a feeling of the first few except for the last.  I can do this.  Although, I'm pretty sure that I'm going to get to the feeling of  "I can't do this" probably sooner than later. 

"What they hell are you running a marathon for?" is what you're probably thinking.  On November 15, 2011, I attended a fundraiser for the Palestinian Children's Relief Fund at University of IL Chicago, hosted by the Students for Justice of Palestine and Rush Darwish.  Rush is an interesting fellow.  He has a lot to his name.  His father organized the Betin Convention in 2011 (Betin is a village in West Bank Palestine just outside of Ramallah) that works to build a hospital using funding and knowledge of doctors/nurses/anyone else that a hospital needs to run efficiently.  Rush owns a photography studio, Rush Productions and is the hosts "RiseUP" radio show on 750 AM on Sundays at noon with his buddy BAWB (Big Ass Wasp Bastard), or as I found out, Bentley. BAWB is a wonderful man who is Caucasian and who claims is ignorant with news from the Middle East. He astonishes me because he's wrong.  He pretty much knows more than I do and I've been there a few times. Rush had invited me to attend the PCRF Fundraiser in November because he asked for me to find a comedian for the event, and I did.  As I always do, I attended the event that I booked funny girl MoNa for and watched her perform.  As I watched the youth do there thing to help create this event run efficiently as possible, they were mentioning "Team Palestine".   I get to the event, take my place with a wonderful group of young Arab-American gentleman of college age and listen to what they were doing there.  It turns out they were performing debka, a traditional Middle Eastern dance that can be equated to the Arabs way of line dancing, but holding hands, more aggressive, and a hell of a lot more fun.  This group, Firket Al Azdeekah and the SJP-UIC were inspiring to me.  These "kids" showed me that the Arab-American youth will fight as hard and strong for a cause they believe in.  We had a commonality together.  Our concern was Palestine.


I was blown away.  These groups and organizations came together really for one night, to present a check to PCRF-Chicago President Dr. Khaled Abughazaleh.  They raised $60,000 from fundraising that year.  And how did Team Palestine do it?  They did by running the marathon.  This was insane to me.  I spoke to different people and some NEVER RAN BEFORE! It was INSANE! I was instantaneously hooked and wanted to be a part of this.  I wanted to do something here that would help as many people as I could, back in the country that I am from.  In Salfit, my Palestinian hometown, I always tell my family that I'm going to do something for them one day and the people of Palestine.  This is just one way of doing it.

So that's it.  All that sappy such was what made me want to run the Chicago Marathon in 2012.  It is 26.2 miles.  I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I am.  So welcome to my journey.  As I'll be plugging for people to put in money to the fund, I'll be sharing my marathon training experiences, purchases for gears, runs, and of course there will be some swearing.  Who wants to read a blog without some anger attributed to it?  I don't.  I like to say the word "Shit" every 10 seconds or so.  So, welcome and sorry for anything that will throw you off later.  Although, I did warn you. 

I'll post links to donate in every blog and it's coming soon. I'll also try to stay consistent as possible.  Your comments and tips are very much appreciated.  If you want to help raise funds, that's welcome, too. More details will come in a week or so.  So stay put.

Warning.  

See there, that was your warning.