Hi Team,

For those of you who don't know me, my name's Stephanie Denny. I'm from Shawnigan Lake, BC, and I run a fitness studio on the west side of the Lake (Change Fitness).

Back in April, my good friend, Jenna Blanchard, asked me to run the Klondike Relay up in the Yukon. This race is a 10 person relay going from Skayway, Alaska to Whitehorse, Yukon. In total, it covers 177 Km. I was going to run 25 of those, and a group of legends from BC & Yellowknife were ready to tackle the other 150 Km! That is, until the the wildfires in the NWT lead to the evacuation of all Yellowknife residents, and our team made the decision to drop out of the 2023 race.

Now I don't know all the gals on our team personally. But I do know that we had nurses, RCMP officers, and local champions coming together during a time of need to support their community. Be it through protecting the community, supporting one another in packing up homes, evacuating the hospital, or providing resources for pre and postpartum mums. Besides offering our home, I wasn't sure what else I could do to help, so I chatted with Jenna (Nurse and representative of The Northern Birthing Collective in Yellowknife), and we came up with a plan...

We wanted to do our part in contributing to the individuals affected by the fires (though, may I point out, that Jenna has certainly been a huge asset in supporting the north during this difficult time. She would not want me to say this, but she has!). So we thought we could still do our race (from our individual locations), and raise funds and awareness to support the Canadians affected by the Wildfires.

HERE'S THE DEAL:

→ We will each be running a leg of the race, but we want to see if we can reach the total Km of the Klondike Relay, so we need your help! I (Steph) will be running 25 Km. And we would love your pledges to do the remaining 152 Km!

→ We will be doing our legs of the race on Sept 10TH around 10AM. And we would love for you to jump in and join us from wherever you are in the world! (Note: If you can't do this time, you can get your km's in any time over the weekend of Sept 9TH/10TH).

→ Again, our goal here is to get people out into nature and moving their bodies during stressful times, as well as to raise awareness and funds for our fellow Northerners and BC Residents who have been impacted by these wildfires.

DONATIONS:

→Donations Raised will be split among two organizations, one which supports our Northern residents, and one which supports our BC residents. (For this reason, I had to set up the Go Fund Me Page to donate to me first, and then I will split up the funds raised 50/50 and donate to each organization, as it wouldn't let me choose two different organizations for one event).

The organizations chosen are ones which are directly linked to the residents and putting the funds directly into the community.

1. NWT- GOBA (www.gobacare.ca for more information).

2. BC - TBD (I would love your input here. I want the money to go directly to the residents. What's the best organization to do this?!)

HOW TO GET INVOLVED:

1. Sign the Pledge Waiver with how many KM you will be doing.

Please complete pledge by Sept 6TH to solidify numbers!

2. Promote and share this with friends, family and on social media so that we can really raise awareness and funds that will help make a difference!

3. This is the only donation page where we are accepting funds (just to keep it simple, and because we only have a week to set this all up!). People can feel free to put which runner they're supporting in their donation note (In fact, this is encouraged!!).

2. Run your leg (all at one time) of the race between the days of Sept 9TH & 10TH (connect with Steph or Jenna if you're in the area and would like to run with them!).

3. Tag @changefitnesspt on Instagram when you have completed (or throughout) your leg of the race. That way we can track everyone and do a final tally! If you don't have Instagram, please email: [email redacted] to let me know you've completed your leg. If you have a photo, that would be great to send as well so I can make a collage of participants!

4. That should do it! Keep it simple.

If I've missed anything, I apologize. And please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions!

Thank you to everyone who participates in this! Canada appreciates you!