It’s 5:30 on a Friday evening. Down on the C&O Canal, the late-spring air already has a heaviness that portends the coming of summer on the Potomac River. But there is a buzz of activity at the trailhead near Shepherdstown, where a crowd of about 40 people prepare for an outing. Their ages range from from two to 80-something, and all are listening to Mark Cucuzzella give some pointers on safe running techniques. From their rapt attention, it would be easy to mistake the event for a gathering of serious runners. Then the crowd scatters—some running hard, some walking, some on bikes, the youngest ones strapped into strollers—and you see this is all about fun.

Some of the middle-aged men and women, you can tell, are consciously trying to put Cucuzzella’s tips into motion, but most of the adults start casually up or down the towpath in small groups, talking as they go. For the kids it’s a mad dash of shouts and laughter as they break from the huddle like students on the last day of school.

So it goes every Friday at the Family Fun Runs hosted by Cucuzzella and Lois Turco, two organizers of Freedom’s Run, A Race for Health and Heritage, which debuts October 9. Freedom’s Run is a walking and running event with distances ranging from a one mile kids race, to a 5K, a 10K, a half marathon, and a full 26.2-mile marathon. It promises to bring a couple thousand runners and tourists to the area for a few days of sightseeing and patronizing local businesses.

While they’re here, the runners and their traveling companions will see more of the landscape that defines the region than do many visitors—because Freedom’s Run is a first-of-its-kind saunter through four national parks, ending at the Shepherd University football stadium.

Health and Heritage? Marathon? National Parks? Might as well add organic farms, healthy school lunch programs and community trail networks, right? Truth be told, Freedom’s Run is more than a race and Family Fun Runs are more than meets the eye. They are pieces of a puzzle to connect Jefferson County residents to their landscape, small towns, and heritage—and in the process change our approach to staying healthy.

It’s the vision of more than 40 community organizations, called “Wild and Wonderful Trails for Every Child.” In a nutshell, the concept involves building a nature trail and community garden at every school and park in the county.
“Accessible after-school programs on local trails will build family fitness, teach nutrition through “edible” gardens, and, hopefully, reconnect children with nature,” said Cucuzzella. “We will designate safe routes to school for walking and biking, gather and distribute donor bikes to put kids and bikes on these routes, and over time we hope to change the culture of how we view how we live.”
The vision is for a ring of trails initially focused around the school, and expanding and connecting as the community sees the value not just in health, but in the economic benefits a walkable and bikable community brings.

A bold idea like this would require more than a race and family 5K; it will take a lot of money. The 40 partners have together applied for a four-year Robert Wood Johnson Foundation “Healthy Kids Healthy Communities” grant. And they’re a finalist in the grant competition.

And the race? “It’s a new kind of collaborative between our region’s national parks, the history-rich bordering small towns, and the health community,” said Turco. It’s also an innovative way to promote a long-term cause that Turco is the lead promoter of: creation of Washington’s Way West National Heritage Area. She chairs the alliance of heritage, conservation, and arts organizations that are promoting the heritage area idea. “If we want to preserve our history and heritage, we need to promote it,” says Turco. Promoting heritage, she adds, means welcoming visitors for events like Freedom’s Run, so that the landscape offers not only intrinsic value—it provides economic value.
Listening to Cucuzzella and Turco, you can’t help but have an “Ah hah!” moment over the idea of using Freedom’s Run to launch a community planning endeavor that promotes public health and a national heritage area.

“Jefferson County was once a purely rural and farming county, and now is transitioning to an exurb of Baltimore and Washington, D.C.,” says Turco. “Like any region in transition, we are at risk of losing our sense of place—that true understanding of the richness of the land we live on.”
Although the makeup of the region is changing, Cucuzzella chimes in, “we’re still saddled with the high obesity rates West Virginia is renowned for.” Cucuzzella describes himself as a “doc” passionate about reversing current trends of inactivity. “Lois is a citizen activist who sees the rich value in our region for generations to come,” he said. “Our confluence was to create Freedom’s Run.”
They hope Freedom’s Run will raise awareness and funds for Healthy Kids Healthy Communities projects. To make it easy for kids to get involved, the Freedom’s Run website will enable kids to raise money for Healthy Kids projects like nature obstacle courses or trail improvements.

There’s another benefit from Freedom’s Run that has local businesses eager for the race: the prospect of a couple thousand tourist-runners visiting the region. Marathons and half marathons draw big crowds. “Participants come for the weekend, and if they like what they see, will return,” said Turco.

“Runners will experience the layers of the past that the Freedom’s Run Course uncovers, from the early days of America’s industrial history and Civil Rights heritage at Harpers Ferry, transportation and westward expansion on the C&O Canal, and the most brutal day in our country’s history at Antietam,” said Cucuzzella. “They’ll experience a living museum, preserved for our future generations.”

All compelling stuff, to be sure. But that’s not on the minds of kids trotting and skipping along the Canal towpath each Friday evening. To them—and the adults out there—it’s fun down by the river. It’s perfectly natural—like walking paths that connect neighborhoods with schools, and schools where kids can work in the garden, and where nature is found in the schoolyard, not just in text books.
Check out the Friday family fun runs through the summer.

Check out our website http://freedomsrun.org/ for details and updates.