Sophomore Haylie DeFrank and junior Meredith Ashworth participated in the Color in Motion 5K in Fairpark Saturday. (Courtesy of Meredith Ashworth)
This past Saturday, Nov. 17th, the Dallas community, including SMU students ran in the Color in Motion 5K at the Cotton Bowl Stadium at Fair Park. The 9 a.m. event, which blasted its participants with colored powder each kilometer, benefited the North Texas chapter of the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
According to the event’s official website, Color in Motion 5K Dallas promised a minimum donation of $5,000 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. For every race volunteer that ran on the behalf of Make-A-Wish, an automatic $50 was given to the North Texas chapter. which grants wishes to life-threatening medical condition in the area since 1982 and since then has granted over 7,000 wishes.
Saturday’s race had a noticeable trend. DYRKSTRONG seemed to adorn the shirts of many runners at the event.
The phrase was in reference to Dyrk Burcie, a 4 year old who passed away two months ago from pediatric liver cancer.
Burcie gained national attention with his father’s fellow Dallas firefighters arranged a photo project for Burcie. They began posting pictures, like Dyrk’s name spelled out on fire, on a Facebook page. Soon other fire stations and organizations in the community were posting pictures for Burcie.
Color in Motion 5K was inspired by the battle of Dyrk. The organization pledged 15 percent of the registration fees from the Dallas race to the Burcie family.
Although no SMU students were part of Team Dyrk, they side-by-side splattered with all colors of the rainbow.
Mary Liz Tuttle, an SMU junior, was up bright and early for the run and felt very passionate about the race’s cause. As the community service chair for the Iota Alpha chapter of Chi Omega at SMU, Tuttle is used to working with the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which is Chi Omega’s national philanthropy.
“Partnering with Make-A-Wish has been such rewarding experience. Color in Motion is like a dream come true,” Tuttle said.
It wasn’t just current SMU students that made it out to the race. Alumni like Jessalyn Phillips (’12) were seen colorfully crossing the finish line.
