For the Love of Go promotes fitness, healthy lifestyles for 10 years

HAYS COUNTY — Having a healthy lifestyle can be challenging, but For the Love of Go has been working to make it a little easier for community members in Hays County.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Todd Crosby, left, stands with Jennifer Crosby at the 5K for Clay. The couple founded For the Love of Go in 2013 to help other families live a healthy lifestyle.[/caption]

The organization officially started in 2013 and received its 501(c)(3) designation in 2014, but the foundation commenced long before that when Jennifer Crosby and her husband were navigating the transition into parenthood.

The family of three started running in races in 2008, mostly because Crosby and her husband wanted to become more healthy. They were spending the majority of their extra money on doctor’s visits for various ailments because they were always getting sick from picking up the bugs or allergies that were going around.

While Crosby started running in junior high school, and her husband ran through his time in graduate school, getting married and having a baby put a halt to it.

“We came to a realization that really, we would rather spend our co-pay on going somewhere together as a family. So, we just started walking in the evenings and then decided if we put some kind of financial commitment into staying healthy, we might be more successful. This was back in the day when there might be one 5K a weekend somewhere in an hour radius of where we live and we lived in Lockhart at the time,” Crosby said. “We just started taking turns signing up for a race, so one of us would sign up and get to run and then the other one would stand with our son and cheer that one on. We took turns until we saved up enough money that both of us could run. Then Jacob, our son, got to the point that he actually was running, too. That [was a] change in our family because we went from going to the doctor once or twice a month just for basic ailments between the two of us to only going to the doctor once a year for our annual checkup.”

Crosby said that making the conscious decision that her family was going to go walk every evening also inspired them to make smarter and healthier decisions for what they were going to be putting on the dinner table. This was something that she wanted to help other families with through For the Love of Go.

She saw that several of the fundraisers that local PTAs used were based around a food element. She started volunteering for the Negley Elementary School PTA to put on fitness-type events to raise money, rather than sending home cookie dough or bread fundraisers.

“That was what started the idea, but then, once we started trying to decide if we could actually form a 501(c)(3), I did a bunch of research on Hays County and the obesity rate, referencing numbers and reports from 2012. That was really eye opening.," she explained. "There was a report that I read that I believe [Ascension] Seton Hospital had done. One of the things that stood out to me was one of the questions that was something along the lines of, 'Why do you not exercise?' That's very simplistic. I don't think that's exactly what the question was., but it was basically, 'Why don't you or your family exercise or participate in fitness?' Some of the answers were along the lines of, 'I don't feel safe,' 'I don't know where to go' [or] 'I can't afford joining a gym.' That really struck a chord with me because we were in the same boat [as a] young family trying to do all the things.”

Crosby thought the organization was going to be solely focused on helping fitness clubs at local schools in the evenings — like the one at Negley Elementary School — to encourage families to come and exercise together, but For the Love of Go was asked to put on more 5Ks and races in the community.

CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Participants — runners and walkers, alike — gather for the Unified Champions for All 5K that was hosted by For the Love of Go in February 2023. As part of For the Love of Go’s mission, funds were raised to go back to Hays CISD’s Special Education Department.[/caption]

“The mission always stayed the same; that we wanted to encourage people to get off the couch in a cost-effective way. We've worked really hard to ensure that our costs stay down. We were excited when schools or small organizations would reach out to us and kind of go back to the original idea that they wanted to do a fundraiser for something very specific,” she said. “They wanted the fun of a community event, people coming out and running and walking together, as opposed to just doing traditional food fundraisers. We started 10 years ago with one or two races a year and now we're up to 30 races a year.”

For those who may be interested in participating in one of the 5Ks, but are hesitant because they are not runners, Crosby encourages them to still sign up because they are not alone.

“You might start out walking 10 minutes every day — that's 10 minutes that you're not sitting still and that 10 minutes might grow into a mile that you're walking. And maybe one day you become a runner, but maybe you don't. Maybe you're just a walker,” she said. “The Hays CISD school board comes specifically to all of the school races we do. Esperanza [Orosco] always tells me, ‘I will be last. So, if anyone comes to you and says ‘Oh, I don't want to run or walk because I'm gonna be last. I'll be finishing by myself.’ She says, ‘You tell them they can finish with me.’ There are some people who will sign up because that takes the pressure off. Like, ‘Oh, if I'm at the back, I'm going to be with friends.’ It even makes me a little bit emotional because there are people who would never have considered themselves a participant in a 5K.”

Crosby shared that one of her favorite memories of the last decade with For the Love of Go involves her high school cross country coach.

“We were doing a race that was thanking coaches and I was able to get a hold of her and invite her to come. I got to tell her publicly in front of the whole race what an impact she had made on my life. She had no idea. Like most teachers don't, [but] they hope they're making an impact. But to get to be in a public forum in front of 200 people to get to honor her in that way, and her family brought her so her family got to experience that, was so cool,” she said. “I hold that very close to my heart at all of these events that we do because there's always a chance that someone is running for someone else to thank them, in honor of or in memory of them. I think being able to do a public event like we do that gives a chance for someone to do that is an unintended great thing.”

Along with working to achieve a healthy lifestyle, participants can give their time and efforts toward other nonprofits.

“A group will reach out to us and say, ‘We'd like to put on a race.’ And 99% of the time, that group is a nonprofit … If someone comes to us and wants us to direct a race, we do our very best to help and encourage people to sign up to pay off the race. And our magic number is 150. Whatever 150 people bring in, that's about how much it costs to put on a race [with] shirts, food, officers, timing, all of those types of things,” Crosby said. “Then, that means that the money that the organization brings in through sponsorships goes to whatever they're raising money for. So, in the case of the Kyle Fire Department [events], their funds were divided among family members, firefighter family members who were fighting cancer or maybe a child was in the ICU, those types of things.”

Crosby said that each nonprofit, organization or school raises money for different things. For example, For the Love of Go is doing a race for Pfluger Elementary School in April as the school is trying to put together an incentive program for positive behavior. There will also be another race for Unified Champions — a branch of Special Olympics — that is held in all of the Hays CISD schools and the money raised will go back to benefit the district’s special education department.

For the Love of Go is hosting  the Hootenanny on the Hill 10K/5K/3K/1K at 7 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 21 at Plum Creek Community Center and Run for the Hills 5K/10K and Candy Dash at 8 a.m. on  Saturday, Oct. 28 at Hays Hills Baptist Church. To register for upcoming races, or learn more about the nonprofit’s impact in the community, visit www.fortheloveofgo.com.