The Refuge’s 2nd Turkey Trot

The Olney Christian Community Center/Refuge and Keep Olney Beautiful partnered to host the second Annual Turkey Trot on Nov. 13. The Refuge hosts this event to help raise funds for Keep Olney Beautiful and bring a fun activity to Olney for the entire family to enjoy. This year we were able to donate $712.00 to Keep Olney Beautiful. Sixty-four participants trotted this year, almost double that of last year. Each participant had the choice to sign up for the 5k or do a 1-mile color fun run!

The start of the event was kicked off by Olney’s mayor, Rue Rogers, and followed with devotion by Rodney Nantz, the Refuge Director. And, of course, the warmup was the Chicken Dance! A coloring contest was held for elementary students in conjunction with the trot, and a winner was chosen from each age group. Olney is filled with artsy youngsters for sure. We had more than 180 entries, and turkeys were all over the place here at the Refuge! Each year our prayer is to have more participants, more community involvement, and for families to make this a yearly tradition. We want to take the time to thank Chief Birbeck, Keep Olney Beautiful, City of Olney employees, and the multitude of volunteers! Without each of them, this event would not be possible. We live in an awesome community, and we look forward to next year!

Thank you as well to 3T Meats, Everyday Farm Girl, Hometown Coffee and Tea, Crashworks STEAM Studio & Makerspace, Erin Mahler Designs, Potter’s Pizza, Oh My Tea, The Duck Coffee Co., River Bend Nature Center, Mogurts and B Cocoa Artisan Chocolates, for our swag bag and raffle items. This helped to make our swag bags bigger and better this year! We appreciate each of you.