The sixth annual Wounded Warriors Run BC is underway as a team of seven military veterans and first responders set to cover more than 600 kilometres, running down the length of Vancouver Island.
They started in Port Hardy’s Carrot Park around 9 a.m. Monday. It was about eight degrees below zero, but according to Wounded Warriors Canada Ambassador Jaqueline Zweng, the kickoff couldn’t have gone any better.
“The grass was sparkling with snow or some ice and the sun was coming up and the water was beautiful. It was just absolutely incredible,” Zweng said.
On the first day of the run, the wounded warrior’s team covered more than 100 kilometres as they made their way from Port Hardy to Woss.
They’re stopping in communities along the way to meet and rally with supporters while raising money for Wounded Warriors Canada, which supports veterans and first responders who are living with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
So far the team has already raised more than half of its $100,000 goal.
“Were at $54,000 on day one,” Zweng said. “The communities understand our mission and they understand that helping out contributing with funding means we can help more people, and we can get more people off a waitlist and into programs that are going to help them."
The money goes directly back into Wounded Warriors Canada programming across the country and here on Vancouver Island.
Some of those local services include a trauma resiliency program and another program called COPE, or Couples Overcoming PTSD Everyday.
“This is ground-breaking therapy because the couple is treated together, because we all know that somebody struggling in a household does not just affect themselves, they affect the people around them as well," Zweng said. "And so by treating the couple, the healing is so much stronger and the couple gets healed together.”
The Wounded Warriors team is expected to arrive in Victoria on Sunday, March 3, when it makes the final stop of its run at the BC Legislature.
