Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

Rankin Inlet (Aug 10/05) - About 30 people came out to walk and run five kilometres in support of a Rankin Inlet couple's charitable mission this past week.

Carla and Jake Punshon have been training and fundraising this year in order to take part in a marathon with Joints in Motion this coming October in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Their participation in the event will be in support of the Arthritis Society.

Carla says the couple has to raise $6,000 each for the marathon, and the Rankin walk/run event was an idea they came up with to help reach that goal.

"$12,000 is a lot of money to raise out of a community the size of Rankin Inlet," says Carla

"We knew people in Rankin are always willing to come out and support causes such as the Terry Fox Run and the CIBC's Run for the Cure against breast cancer, so we hoped if we held a similar event earlier in the summer people would come out and help support our cause."

Added motivation

Carla says while anyone can pay a $50 entrance fee and go run in a marathon, she and her husband wanted to do something for a charitable cause while participating.

The couple felt contributing to a worthwhile cause would help motivate them during training.

"We were approached by a couple of physical therapists who knew about the Joints in Motion event for the Arthritis Society, so that's how we got involved with running for that charity. "Of the $6,000 each we raise, about $5,000 each will go directly to the Arthritis Society."

The Punshons were pleased with the turnout for their event, which raised a little more than $1,000 and pushed them past the halfway mark of achieving their goal.

Preparation key

Carla says the event was fairly easy to organize, which, at this stage of their preparation, is an important factor.

"We're running so much that all our time and energy is going into preparing for the marathon, which means going to bed early because you have to be up at four in the morning.

"We're doing jelly bracelets right now and a $1 guess-our-finish-time contest.

"We're also looking at holding a garage sale sometime during the next month, but, if worse comes to worse, I'll sponsor Jake and he'll sponsor me and we'll make sure we go."