Several San Jose State student-athletes wanted to give back to the San Jose community, so they decided to organize and compete in a Race for Change five-kilometer run on Sunday. All the proceeds went toward a local African American organization.
“During COVID-19, [African American Community Service Agency] created AACSA Cares,
which is a program that served over 8,000 people,” SJSU football linebacker Christian Webb, said in a video posted on Twitter by the SJSU women’s basketball team. “We go out in the community and make sure that people have the essential items they need, such as toiletries, food, baby wipes, diapers and anything else that you can think of.”
Annalisa Duarte, an academic support coordinator and adviser for the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, was at the event on Sunday, making sure athletes socially distanced to adhere to Santa Clara County health guidelines.
Duarte said the original idea for the event came from the University of California, San Diego women’s basketball program.
The SJSU women’s basketball program then organized the same event here in San Jose to support the African American Community Service Agency, which Duarte said many SJSU student-athletes intern for, and other sports teams soon joined to raise money for charity purposes.
SJSU’s Race for Change GoFundMe page set a $1,500 goal. Then, SJSU’s Beyond Football, a campus organization that connects football players to community organizations, raised the goal to $2,500.
By Monday, almost $3,000 was raised on the GoFundMe page.
Duarte said Race for Change event organizers asked each SJSU team if they wanted to participate.
“We got so many teams that said ‘Yes, 100%. We definitely want to support this cause, we want to raise awareness for social injustices, as well as help our local community,’ ” Duarte said in a phone call.
Dana Dormann, SJSU women’s golf head coach, participated in the five-kilometer run by posting a video on Twitter of her completing the run. She said she would match her initial pledge up to $400 for student-athletes who participate and repost.
“When we were planning it, I didn’t realize they were going to do it on Sunday,” Dormann said. “I couldn’t make it on Sunday so that’s why I did my virtual run on Friday.”
Student-athletes arrived on Sunday at South Campus with their respective teams to complete the
five-kilometer run. The athletes delayed their start time for about 15 minutes each to maintain distance from one another.
Alexus Jackson, SJSU women’s soccer midfielder, said each team had different time slots and her team’s call time was 9:30 a.m.
“Everyone was excited and full of energy,” Jackson said. “It was great vibes.”
Jackson said seeing other student-athletes push to run a fast time really stood out to her.
“Seeing them push themselves, it was really nice,” Jackson said.
Duarte said a group of student-athletes came together to form SJSpeaksUp, a social justice activism group.
SJSpeaksUp is a group that posts films, books and articles on its social media in order to teach other Spartans about racial inequality and social change, according to an Aug. 5 article by SJSU athletics. The group works with the Beyond Football program and its mission is to educate, empower and enact change for equality.
“I would say our student-athletes are very involved in raising awareness for social injustices,” Duarte said.
