When Joe Khalil ‘27 told people that he wanted to run 50 miles in one day as a way to fundraise money, most people told him he was insane. Matt Myers ‘27, though, created a logo within 24 hours of Khalil telling him of this idea.
On April 18, Khalil is running 50 miles in 1 day, hopefully in under 12 hours, and is fundraising for the Spartanburg Soup Kitchen and Miracle Hill Ministries. He chose these organizations because of how they intentionally spend their funds to feed people and directly meet the needs of people.
Khalil came up with this idea created during the leadership summit before the school year had started, at which point he hadn’t even run a 5k.
Despite this, he had people who believed in him like Myers and Dr. Patrick Stanton and have helped him organize this event and support him through the training process.
“That is what I’m most impressed by– how committed and dedicated he is to it, because there’s no days off,” Myers said.
Khalil doesn’t particularly enjoy running funnily enough, but is now at the point in training where his easy runs are seven miles, and longer runs are in the 20 mile range. What gets him through this training is the people that he is training for, since this 50 mile challenge is not for him, but to support those experiencing homelessness and food insecurity.
The event itself is happening on April 18, and Myers has helped to organize with Wofford for it to also be a day of service, with hygiene assembly stations, letter writing for veterans and those in hospitals as well as others, bag packing stations, campus cleanup project and a food drive.
“The best part about this is the community aspect. We had one video on social media take off over 19,000 views. A lot of people engaged with it, they want to know how to help,” Khalil said.
The main goal of the fundraising is to have a sponsor for each of the 50 miles that Khalil runs, from big organizations, companies, generous donors, alumni, students, and students’ families. There is also a general donation page on GoFundMe for those not sponsoring a mile.
Both Myers and Khalil are both very service oriented individuals, and are similar in many ways, though they also have their differences that help them balance each other out to make a perfect combo for creating this event. They also hope that this event and the day of service is able to also impact those in the Wofford community to encourage them to do good.
“You come to Wofford to get a good education and to set yourself up better for the future, but I think one thing you can add to your Wofford experience is to learn how to serve others, and I think that this could really inspire people,” Myers said.
Khalil believes that while much of running 50 miles is endurance, it doesn’t really feel like endurance. For him, true endurance is seen in the people who are on the receiving end of the fundraising through this day.
“When you have a why, the how does not matter,” Khalil said.
If you are interested in learning more about this event or how to donate, links to the GoFundMe and Instagram page:
