As a charity partner of the Marine Corps Marathon, the IAFF Burn Foundation reserves a limited number of entries for IAFF members, friends, family and supporters to participate in the Marine Corps Marathon on October 25, 2009, as a member of the IAFF Burn Foundation Marine Corps Marathon (MCM) Team.
In addition to a $100 registration fee, each runner accepted for the IAFF Burn Foundation MCM Team must commit to raise $1,000 by October 25 (race day), with proceeds benefiting the IAFF Burn Foundation.
Each team member will receive an official IAFF Burn Foundation MCM Team race singlet and T-shirt, and are invited to a pasta dinner the night before the race. In addition, the IAFF Burn Foundation sponsors a hospitality tent in the Charity Partners Village at the race finish for team members and their families. Team runners will also receive a Marine Corps Marathon participant T-shirt, champion chip and goodie bag.
You may donate to one of the IAFF Burn Foundation MCM Team runners atIAFFBurnMCM09. Pull down the View Fundraiser Pages menu and click on your runner’s name to make your donation.
Bob Kuhn: Running For A Cause
Bob Kuhn loves a challenge and a good
cause. A member of Strongsville, OH
Local 2882, he’s found both in the
IAFF Burn Foundation Marine Corps
Marathon team.
Not only has Kuhn run the Marine Corps
Marathon every year for seven years as part
of the IAFF team, he has finished first
among male team runners and raised nearly
$30,000 for the IAFF Burn Foundation.
A member of the United States Marine
Corps for 22 years—15 of which were active
duty — Kuhn never had time to run a
marathon.
But after retiring from the Marine
Corps and joining the Strongsville Fire
Department he read about the IAFF Burn
Foundation Marine Corps Marathon team
and signed up to realize his long-time goal to
run a marathon. Always an avid runner, he
trained for and ran his first marathon—the
Marine Corps Marathon—in 2000 as part
of the Burn Foundation team.
But the Marine Corps Marathon was especially meaningful
for Kuhn this year. He ran
in memory of Marine Corporal Jeffrey
Boskovitch, a member of a Scout Sniper
team who was killed along with four other members of his team by insurgents in Iraq
on August 1, 2005. Corporal Boskovitch was
assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine
Regiment — a unit that has sustained the
most casualties in Iraq to date. Kuhn hadled this regiment as a Scout Sniper
Reconnaissance Platoon Commander until
a year before its deployment to Iraq.
Finishing the 26.2-mile course in
3:00:19, Kuhn insists that winning isn’t
his goal. He says his participation in the
marathon is a superficial contribution
compared to what burn survivors endure,
and has vowed to run as a member of
the IAFF Burn Foundation Marathon
team every year until he retires from
the fire service. He also wants to
recruit more IAFF members to step up
to the challenge and run for the IAFF
Burn Foundation team. In 2007, Kuhn
enlisted seven runners from his local and
neighboring jurisdictions. Eventually, he
wants to bring a busload of runners to
this annual event.
To that end, Kuhn is challenging his IAFF
brothers and sisters to join the IAFF Burn
Foundation Marine Corps Marathon team.
For information on how to apply for the
2009 Marathon Team, call (202) 824-8620 or email burnfoundation@iaff.org.
