After 18 years of organizing the Moose Jawg Charity Road Race and raising funds for the Moose Jaw Health Foundation, Dawn Luhning has decided to pass the project to others.
After the pandemic cancelled the 2020 and 2021 editions of the race, hopes were high that the event could proceed in 2022, especially with high vaccination rates, Luhning wrote on Facebook. However, those hopes won’t be coming to fruition this year, so marathon enthusiasts will have to wait until June 17, 2023 to participate in the next race.
“I’ve made a conscious decision to move on and pass the torch to others to take over the (reins) of Moose Jawg. I will have more information very soon,” said Luhning.
“These last two years have taken me out of the groove of planning this event, and over the last years with Moose Jawg, I have been the one organizing and ensuring all of it went off without a hitch. It’s a large task and it’s time for me to move on.”
Luhning has given the charity road race to Andrea Amiot and Teri Nimegeers of The Attic Spin Studio. Luhning noted that she was “super excited” to help transition her race to them and thought they would make it their own.
In a separate Facebook post, The Attic Spin Studio replied, “We are very excited about this and thank you Dawn Luhning for passing the (reins) over to us!!”
The last Moose Jawg Charity Road race occurred on July 1, 2019. The 18th edition of the race raised $5,000 for the health foundation, while since its beginning, the event had raised more than $134,000.
After that race, Luhning said she was pleased with how it turned out and described it as awesome.
“Really good, really good. It was a great day and it was great weather,” she said at the time. “It ran pretty smoothly. It was one of the smoothest ones I’ve ever ran.”
That year there were 260 participants, while 59 youngsters took part in the Runt Run. Luhning joined the kids during their event and ran with them over the bridge.
“I’ve always said that’s one of the best parts of the day is watching them line up,” she said. “They’re so excited to be there and it’s just a great part of the event, that’s for sure.”
Luhning did not participate in the races but stayed behind to ensure the logistics ran smoothly, supported the volunteers if they needed help and cheered on the racers.
After the 2019 race, Luhning had hoped to find more sponsors and start the process of finding a new logo, which was a race tradition. A website had been expected to launch in January 2020 to allow runners to register, but COVID-19 popped its head into the picture a few months later — and we all know how that turned out.
