Since her freshman year, Belmont junior Leslie Mosier has laced up her running shoes and raced through the streets of Nashville in the St. Jude Country Music Marathon.
However, this year’s race on next Saturday will mean slightly more to Mosier than just running to improve her time.
Instead, her run comes with a new mission: to honor and help the victims of the Boston Marathon by raising funds for the Red Cross through an online campaign called Run for Boston.
Following the aftermath of the explosions at the finish line of the annual race on Monday, Mosier felt drawn to create the campaign that she modeled after similar ones for victims of natural disasters.
“I didn’t feel it would be fair to run for personal reasons, so I decided to raise money prior to the run (Country Music Marathon),” the music business major said. “It’s a chance to run for a cause much bigger than myself.”
Mosier admits that as a runner, the bombings hit her close to home. But she also said that her connection to the fellow runners is what sparked the idea.
“The running community is really tight knit and when something happens the whole community comes together,” she said.
Runners are not the only ones to take notice. Local news organizations became interested in her fundraising efforts and have reached out to Mosier for interviews, something she thought was overwhelming.
The news coverage as lead to an increase in social media support which Mosier hopes will increase her campaign’s reach.
“I feel that if one person online with a lot of Internet power posts about this, we will be able to spread the message pretty far.”
Mosier is also bringing her efforts offline.
“I’m encouraging all runners to write with Sharpie ‘Run for Boston’ on their arm, take a picture and post it on Twitter or Instagram with the hashtag Run for Boston,” she said. “Hopefully we can get it trending worldwide and all the people in Boston will see that Nashville cares about them.”
On April 27, Mosier will take her place among the thousands of other St. Jude Country Music Marathon entrants baring the symbol of her fundraiser and striving to make a difference.
“By myself I don’t have a lot of power, but together we as a community do,” she said.
Donations to Run for Boston can be made at www.youcaring.com/runforboston or you can find the link on the campaign’s Facebook page.