Kelsey and Colin Francis (Photo provided)

To the editor:

My son Colin, a seventh-grader at Lake Placid Middle School, and I have been running together a lot. Running has always been an important part of our relationship, but we’re finding we need it now more than ever. Without the typical opportunities to race, we decided to make our own 46er challenge. Instead of hiking 46 High Peaks, we are completing 46 runs of 3 miles each, for a total of 138 miles.

Rather than run solely for our physical and mental health, we decided to do it for a very worthy cause. We want to both support local business during this time of isolation and encourage our shared love of reading.

For every mile we run, we are raising funds to purchase gift certificates at our favorite indie bookstore: the Bookstore Plus. These gift certificates will then be distributed to kids as part of the backpack food program at Lake Placid Central School. The Backpack Program was started in 2016 to send supplementary food home with kids each week for families in need.

If you would like to donate per mile (10 cents! 25 cents!) or one flat dollar amount in order to support this cause, simply call the Bookstore Plus in Lake Placid at 518-523-2950 by May 15 and tell Sarah or Marc you’d like to donate to the 46er Running Challenge.

Currently, 194 Lake Placid Central School children receive supplementary food through the Backpack Program. Our goal is to raise enough money to provide a $10 gift certificate to each child. That means our fundraising goal is $1,940!

Colin and I have already run 45 miles of our 138-mile goal! Feel free to do your own version of a 46er challenge — walking, running, biking, vacuuming (or not vacuuming). I’ll be updating our progress as we go.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for supporting our community and our kids.

Kelsey Francis

Lake Placid