Man runs 15 marathons in 15 days to benefit 15 teachers in Uganda
Chris Robbie has always had a great sense of the world around him. An avid traveler, the 24-year-old Colorado native has visited more than 20 countries, many of them for volunteer or missions work.
On a trip to Uganda in 2012, Robbie met a teacher named Olive, who moved back to her home of Kito in order to establish the village's first school. Olive was making do, teaching 75 kids in a temporary building made of mud.
"When I went and I heard her story and saw the community, it really captured my heart," Robbie told Purpose2Play.com. "In Kito Village, there's no electricity and everyone goes to the well to get their water. There's a lot of poverty, but there's a real sense of beauty and joy among the people there."
So when Robbie returned back to the United States, he co-founded Enduring Communities in order to provide assistance to Olive's school in Uganda, helping to build three more classrooms and bolster the student body to more than 330 kids, taught by 15 teachers.
The foundation helps the school monthly with salaries and school supplies, but Robbie wanted to show his foundation's "dedication to the long-term growth of Uganda" in a big way.
So the avid runner decided that he would run 15 marathons in 15 days in 15 different cities across Colorado, from June 16-30, to provide salaries for those 15 teachers in Kito Village (each teacher's salary is $750 a year, so the total goal is $11,250).
"My hope is that by stepping out, and by pushing myself to my limits, that it will make a small difference in a small corner across the world," Robbie told Purpose2Play.com.
So far, the former track and cross-country runner, who will attend Notre Dame law school in the fall, has completed 12 of his 15 marathons -- 314.4 miles into his 393-mile goal. Here's part of Robbie's journal entry from Friday, as recounted in his 15 for Uganda blog:
