A city running for a firefly: Join the Světluška Night Run in Olomouc in support of blind people
Thanks to unflagging participation, the Světluška Night Runs have managed to raise an incredible 18.5 million crowns in support of blind people over the last nine years. Add your own small donation at the starting line and enjoy the tenth anniversary of this headlamp-powered run – a part of the side program for this year’s Prix Bohemia Radio.
The Světluška Night Run will start on Wednesday October 20th at 8 p.m. at the Athletics Club in Bezručovy sady, a park in southeastern Olomouc. You are welcome to either walk or run one of the two routes – 2.3 km or 4.6 km – and you don’t have to choose one until you’ve reached the starting line. This run will also be accompanied by an entertaining side event – a fire show starting at 6:30 and again at 8:00 p.m., hosted by Jan Hlavsa. The traveling POTMĚ Café will be headed into Olomouc on the same date, offering its guests good coffee as well as listening programs to go along with Prix Bohemia Radio.
Starting packages for everyone
Starting packages will be awaiting the runners once again this year. And those who register early will be able to choose between two headlamp styles alongside their Světluška backpack. Both package variants will also include energy-packed liquid refreshments from Isostar.
You can register for the Světluška Night Run via the GoOut.cz network. More information on the race is available here.
Světluška helps blind people towards independence
The Světluška Night Run is among the nation’s largest sporting events in support of people with disabilities. The beginnings of this event that helps people with major vision impairments lay in a story of three friends who decided to organize a charity run with headlamps in support of Světluška (“Firefly”), a charity for blind people. “But then we found the courage to shake hands on a decision to invite in the general running public. We said: we’ll have everyone who comes pay a nominal starting fee that we’ll donate to Světluška in full,” explains advertising creative David Podhola, who is one of the fathers of the Night Run alongside Jakub Hereš and Martin Skála.
“So we offered this project to the Czech Radio Endowment Fund. None of us knew what we were getting into and just how successful this event would be. But we all had faith in it. Today, ten years later, we have a fabulous series of runs nationwide that just continues to confirm for us that running in the dark is a million-crown idea, literally,” Podhola notes on this year’s tenth anniversary of the Night Run. Since its first year, the run has brought out a total of nearly 40,000 runners who have donated 18.5 million crowns in support of blind people.
