PRINCETON, Mass. — Runners and walkers gathered at Wachusett Mountain on Saturday for the Vanessa T. Marcotte Foundation’s 10th annual 5K.
[ Vanessa T. Marcotte Foundation celebrates decade of impact with 10th annual 5K ]
The race is in honor of Vanessa Marcotte, who was just 27 years old when she was killed while on a walk near her family home in Princeton.
Since 2016, the race has been turning tragedy into positivity.
“This is a huge turnout for something good, something really, really good,” one runner said.
Family, friends, and the community participated in the annual race in an effort to keep Vanessa’s memory alive, but also to support the foundation’s mission of empowering women and providing programs like self-defense classes to the public.
“It doesn’t feel like it’s been 10 years, every year I think this day gets bigger, and people who don’t know Vanessa come here to support us,” Ashely McNiff, Vanessa’s best friend and co-founder of the foundation said.
The 5K is the foundation’s biggest fundraiser.
“When we started out, I think most of the people that came to our events knew Vanessa, and now over time I think she’s continued to touch the lives of people she didn’t even know and I think that’s what we’re most proud of,” Vanessa’s cousin and co-founder of the foundation, McNiff said. “I think she would be really proud of that too.”
10 years later, the goal of the foundation and the race remain the same: to honor Vanessa, but also to give back because as a young volunteer and tutor, that’s who Vanessa was.
“Vanessa was just incredibly ambitious and hardworking,” Vanessa’s cousin and co-founder of the foundation, Caroline Tocci said. “If a tragedy happened to any of her family and friends, she would have done the same thing.”
“We won’t ever let her name be forgotten and who she was,” Tocci said. “Of course, we don’t want people to remember her for how she died but really the impact she made on others.”
The foundation plans to continue the 5K in Vanessa’s name for decades to come.
After the race, participants enjoyed music, food, and raffles.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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