LR Running of the Bulls will benefit two charities
For a week each July, people line the streets of Pamplona, Spain, for the Running of the Bulls. Participants dressed in white clothes with red bandanas around their necks sprint in front of six charging bulls and do their best to not get stomped or gored or both.
For one day in June, there will be a bull run in Little Rock, but this one is nothing like Pamplona’s madness. The “bulls” will be on roller skates and this run will help two organizations — Family Promise of Pulaski County and The Van — assist the homeless population in central Arkansas.
Officially called The Running of the Bulls de La Pequna Roca, the merriment begins Saturday with a kids run at 4:30 p.m. and an adult run at 5 p.m. in front of the Clinton Presidential Center. Entrants will flee not rampaging bulls, but women from the local roller derby leagues Girls Rollin’ in the South (GRITS) and Central Arkansas Roller Derby (CARD), armed with plastic bats to playfully whack any lagging runners.
The adult course is about a mile long and the kids will run a much shorter route around the library’s parking lot.
“We thought it would be more fun to have it in the evening,” says Mandy Brown, Family Promise treasurer and board member, about the afternoon start. “It would keep people occupied downtown. You can make a date for after you’re done running.”
And about all that running from the bulls, Lindsay Carter, board treasurer with The Van and co-chairman with Brown of the fundraiser, says not to stress, at least not over the running.
“It’s not a training run or anything serious. This is strictly for fun,” she says. “We tell people not to worry about the length.
Just don’t get caught by a roller derby girl, or you’ll get smacked around.”
This is the second running of the bulls in Little Rock. Family Promise was involved with the event two years ago, skipped last year and rebooted the run with The Van for Saturday.
“Family Promise works with homeless families with children and helps them transition to their own housing,” says Brown, 31, an accountant with JPMS Cox. She has been involved with the group for more than two years. “We have case management and help parents find jobs, maintain savings accounts and get
kids to school.”
The charity isn’t a physical shelter, she says, rather, it teams with a network of volunteer churches to house families. The group also has a van and driver to transport families to errands, meetings, work, job interviews and school.
In 2016, Family Promise served 17 families that included 44 children and 21 adults, Brown says. The group has between 750 and 800 volunteers including members of network churches who volunteer on average 20 hours a year. Brown adds that 92 percent of families who have completed the program were still in their own housing a year later.
Carter, 34, a financial adviser at Morgan Stanley, began volunteering with The
Van about three years ago.
A subsidiary of The One Inc. — which also includes an urban farm called The Field and the women’s shelter Kathryn’s House — The Van started about six years ago as a rolling supply unit for people living on the streets and in makeshift camps.
“We’re a homeless advocacy and outreach organization,” says Carter, who is married with two children, ages 6 and 8. “We’re a mobile resource. We have a fleet of vans and we go to those that are in need in the Little Rock metropolitan area and provide them with supplies, food, tents, tarps, clothing.”
Founded by Arkansas native Aaron Reddin, The One Inc., has served as an incubator, with Van spinoffs like The Rust Bus, Mission Machine and River Giver helping the homeless and all working from a warehouse on Faulkner Lake Road in North Little Rock.
The Van serves more than 500 homeless people in the Little Rock metropolitan area yearly, Carter says. Adding transients passing through town, that number can reach up to 700.
“It’s really grass roots,” Carter says of what attracted her to The Van. “If there’s a dollar donated, a dollar goes to their mission. I like that.”
The teaming of the two organizations for the bull run makes sense, she adds.
“We’re very symbiotic, as far as what we [both] provide
to the community. We provide a complementary set of services.”
Entry fees are $35 for adults and $15 for kids. Runners can preregister at bullrunlr.com or sign up at the Clinton Center on Saturday beginning at 4 p.m. Registration includes a T-shirt and a souvenir bandana, the latter of which must be worn to participate in the run.