Connor Dugan's Light of the Gap

10/06/2024

And we've finished! Just like George in this amazing photo!

There's a lot of things to say but first - Thank you so much! To every single one of you - Volunteers, runners, walkers, Pretzel City, everyone! You all played a massive part in helping us realize our biggest event yet and helped it go off almost perfectly. It was beautiful out and it was nothing short of a proper cozy fall day with lots of smiles, and a lot of memories to keep!

And to sweeten things up just a bit... You all just about DOUBLED our expected turnout for the event! We had a total of 37 runners and walkers!

So there's a few notes that we're taking for next year:

1) There was a small discrepancy on course length, so for runners, the path was slightly short of a proper 5K (roughly 2.75 miles, not 3.1) so the placement of the start and finish line will slightly change for next year. But that just means some of you got a PR!

2) We absolutely want some signage and markings along the course next year.

3) It looks like the fruit and snacks were a hit, so we'll make sure to bring plenty of those for everyone next year!

4) We'll be looking into sponsorships and other goodies for next year's race, like t-shirts!

In the coming weeks we'll be able to announce some of our ideas for the holidays and some other upcoming fundraising efforts.

There will be pictures that our friends and volunteers took that we'll be posting here and there to keep it fresh in everyone's mind so keep an eye out for yourself in them!

10/04/2024

Hello everyone! We're all so excited to see you in just a few short days! Thank you so much to the 12 runners and 8 walkers who have pre-registered! We're really hoping we can get a few more people to join us this year so that we can lock in next year's race and make it better, too!

Day-of registration and packet pickup will be at the pavilion circled in blue! Both will begin at 9AM on Sunday.

The race will begin at 10AM and consist of 3 full loops starting at the northern part of the race near the playground (just past packet pickup!), ending just past the pavilion in the middle by the red circle!

Walkers will do one full loop and end at the same finish area.

Awards will be announced and handed out when all participants have finished!

Make sure you rest up, hydrate beforehand, and be ready to run! (or walk!)

Thanks to everyone so far for helping us out for our first time!

09/18/2024

Hello everyone! Our bibs and medals are here and it's time for the price increase! Please don't forget the 5K is coming up soon - in just three weekends!

It's now $30 per person for the 5K and $25 per person for the 1 mile fun run/walk! You can register below here to help support us:

https://www.pretzelcitysports.com/onlineform1.php?id=1817

We're so excited to see everyone soon!

09/01/2024

Hello again! Here's the post you've (and we've) all been waiting for!

We are officially working with Pretzel City Sports to host our First Annual Connor Dugan's Angel Chase on Sunday October 6th, 2024! This will take place at the Penn Forest Township Park in Jim Thorpe. We can't speak enough praise for how well everything has gone working with them on this and how easy they've made the whole process.

The race will be split into two parts - A 5K starting at 10AM and a 1 Mile Fun Run & Walk starting at 10:45AM. There will be awards for runners that place first through third in the 5K!

Pricing starts at $25 for the 5K and $20 for the 1 Mile and will increase by $5 if registering after September 18th until and including in-person day of race registration. In-person registration and packet pickup will begin at 9AM on race day.

Please keep in mind that this is our first year doing this - So we're doing our best and we're keeping track of everything to make next year's even better! Instead of shirts this year - We are focusing on stickers and the awards but next year we are shooting for shirts as well.

You can register online through Pretzel City Sports's page (this is recommended!) by going here:

Want to get weekly updates on the races coming up this weekend and next? Or emails on deadlines for race price breaks, race cancellations or postponements, extensions of entry deadlines, etc? Then sign up here to get Pretzel City’s eblasts, your BEST source for information on races in our region.

08/31/2024

Hi everyone!

It's quite a bit late (there's been a lot of things happening in all of our lives) but we've been taking slow and steady moves in the background to keep moving forward with all of our plans.

First of all, a MASSIVE thank you to everyone at Nocturnal Tattoo in Nazareth for hosting a tattoo benefit with us and thank you Michelle from Ethereal Fawn Tattoo in Allentown for guest spotting to help them/us out! Thanks to their hard work, we were able to raise $1100 in funds for our nonprofit. This is exactly what we needed to finish the rest of the background work for hosting our FIRST ANNUAL 5K... which is happening in JUST OVER A MONTH FROM TODAY!!!

In the background we've had to secure the OK with Penn Forest Township's board to use their park, and get the right insurance for it, too. Thanks to everyone's help from the popcorn fundraiser earlier this year we were able to cover it and make that happen.

Please stay tuned to our updates because we'll drop all the rest of the information we can later tonight... but we can say be ready for it this October 6th (Sunday) at the Penn Forest Township Park!!! Keep your calendar open!

06/24/2024

Hello everyone!

We wanted to pop in and update you all about what we have in store for the future, near and far! So to break it down super quick:

1) You all helped us raise over $600 in popcorn purchases and in cash donations during our DoubleGood Fundraiser event! This put us on the map and almost completely covered what we needed to have ready for our 5K in October.

2) An update and a date for our 5K - We're looking at Sunday October 6th for the big day! We're pulling strings in the background right now to make sure everything falls into place properly. We should have more information we can share soon about this and we know there's not too much time til then - So hopefully this first one is enough of a learning experience to make this go smoother for round two and beyond!

3) We're going to be hosting a new fundraiser with the help of Nocturnal Tattoo in Nazareth! They'll be hosting a flash tattoo event for us on July 21st with their artists, and welcoming Michelle from Ethereal Fawn as a guest spot! We'll also have extra art made specifically for this with the help of Kahelle! You can see their pages and instagram links below, as well as on our flyer for this event made by Chris at Nocturnal Tattoo! We will primarily be offering flash for Pokemon-related art, but all of the artists will do their other available flash art as well for anyone looking for things that aren't Pokemon related. There will also be two piercers on site at the event for anyone interested in piercings!

Thank you so much for riding along with us while we get things moving and helping us get to where we are today! We hope to see you at some of our events soon! We know it's been very quiet here with so many things going on in life but we're doing our best!

03/22/2024

And we're live! Thanks in advance for all of your support! ❤️

Click here to buy ultra-premium popcorn and 50% of your purchase benefits this fundraiser.

03/22/2024

Hey everyone!

We are doing a fundraiser with DoubleGood Popcorn as our second event for our nonprofit and our first to start pulling in funds for getting more events off the ground - bringing DUI prevention back to our community as well as our first 5K in honor of Connor that we hope to make an annual event! Our store(s) go live at 6PM tonight and stay up for 4 days.

Half of what you spend goes directly to us. There's a ton of options and all of us can personally vet most of these flavors as being fantastic (as we've donated and bought popcorn through here before - which is why we picked working with them!). If you purchase, you should have your order within two weeks!

If you can, please spread the word and help us bring in as much as possible so we can make some amazing things happen this year. We couldn't have done our toy drive without the help we received last Christmas, so we're hoping we have the same support this year.

Thank you all so much! Remember, these go up at 6PM tonight (3/22) and end in 4 days from then!

George's link: https://popup.doublegood.com/s/6hb6k67u
Holly's link: https://popup.doublegood.com/s/q7sa7d97
Kayla's link: https://popup.doublegood.com/s/8880ljnz
Ted's link: https://popup.doublegood.com/s/s9x499fi

Click here to buy ultra-premium popcorn and 50% of your purchase benefits this fundraiser.

12/19/2023

December 18th came oh so quick, and to think we only had about two weeks since the announcement for the donation drive and we started reaching out to everyone for help - Look at where we ended up!

For anyone looking at the specifics, we raised $674 in monetary donations alone which were used on two little 'shopping sprees' around the area to pick up toys, plushies, games, cards, and more and that doesn't include what we ourselves put in to cover the rest after each of the trips or the items donated separately from other donors. To put it simply, we easily raised about A THOUSAND DOLLARS worth of donations for kids this Christmas! When we initially signed up to donate to LVHN we set our 'likely donation size' to 'a few grocery bags' but we ended up nearly filling three whole carts thanks to everyone's generosity.

It made us feel so wonderful being a part of this process and knowing that with the help of everyone we were able to impact the lives of tons of children. And honestly, I almost cried.

Thank you to each and every one of you who took the time to even read our posts, and thank you to so many of you for lifting us up and making this possible. We wouldn't have been able to do this without all of you. We can't wait to share our plans for next year with everyone!

- Ted

12/11/2023

Hello again! Just wanted to drop in a little update on where we're at for the donation drive for Lehigh Valley Children's Hospital this Christmas!

This haul is from today and is just shy of nearly $500 in toys, plushies, and clothes thanks to all of the amazing support from so, so many of you!

It was an awesome way to spend the morning and we even got a few very impressed people with our haul.

And here's a secret - this is nowhere near all of what we have - this is a little less than half!

Seriously, thank every one of you so much for making this possible. We're still taking donations until Friday so reach out if you'd like!

- Ted

12/11/2023

Hey everyone! We were lucky enough to talk to Jarrad recently as word of our founding and first few steps in reaching out to the community picked up pretty fast and he wanted to learn more about us and spread the word to help us grow.

If you have the time, please check out the article posted with the Times News! We were also on the front page of the paper if you're able to pick one up!

A 2021 Christmas Eve crash claimed the life of Connor Dugan, but those closest to him are working to make sure his memory lives on. Founded earlier this year by Connor’s parents, George and Holly Duga...