Kellie Spann organized a 5K run to raise money for homeless veterans as her senior project. Her research found that over 250,000 veterans are homeless on any given night in the US, with 23% of the homeless population being male veterans and 3% being female veterans. She planned the race, obtaining permission, designing t-shirts, and setting up the course. On the day of the race, bad weather occurred and most runners left for safety, but she still raised $109.31 which she donated to a Veteran Support Organization. While organizing such a large event was challenging, she was glad to raise money for veterans.

1. Kellie Spann
April 18, 2012
Senior Project Speech
On any given night in the United States, over 250,000 veterans define the streets
as their home. My name is Kellie Spann and for my senior project I organized a 5K Fun
Run to raise money for homeless veterans.
For my research paper, I researched the amount veterans who come home from
oversees to society’s neglect that leads them to become homeless. I was shocked to find
out how much desertion and inattention our veterans are experiencing upon what should
be a welcoming homecoming; several of thousands of couples are divorced shortly after
the return after a spouse’s first deployment, causing families to break up and loved ones
with no place to go but the streets. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, almost 80% of
homeless men had at some time in their life put on an American uniform and served our
country in the Vietnam War. During my research, I discovered numerous sources that
have all claimed that currently 23% of America’s homeless population are male veterans,
and 3% are female veterans, totaling up to over a quarter of America’s entire homeless
population. This number is continuing to rise every day, which motivated me to
personally reverse society’s normal tendency to disregard the brave men and women who
risk their lives for our country, and instead, I wanted to think of a way to raise money to
get these troupers off the streets.
Since I am an active runner, I came up with the idea to organize my own 5K race.
My product is the actual race. I chose to do this for the sake of giving back to those who
put their lives on the line every day to ensure our freedom and liberty. First and foremost,

2. I planned my race. I picked out a date, time, and location for my race. I then proceeded to
call Creekland, the middle school across the street, to see if I had permission to use its
trails to host my race. Once I had permission, I typed up my registration forms with the
appropriate information. I decided to make the registration $10 per person. In order to
make people want to come, however, I realized that I needed to offer a prize. After
consideration, I chose to award the top 5 female and the top 5 male finishers with free t-
shirts. I designed my own t-shirts to reward the runners with. Following my design, I
called Target to ask them to donate t-shirts to me. After giving the Target manager an
official letter from the school, she approved and provided t-shirts for me. I took them to a
screen-printing shop several times due to electronic difficulties with my design. I ordered
extra t-shirts for in-case scenarios. Then I picked them up about a week later when they
were ready. Then, I asked the manager of my local Publix to donate water for my race,
for which I also had to provide an official letter from my school in order to get approval.
Next, I started to plan the set-up of my race. I decided to use bright orange spray paint to
paint arrows in the trails so that the runners would know where to go during the race, and
I decided to use wooden stakes and rope to guide them during the part of the race that
was out of the woods. I went to Home Depot to buy these supplies. After buying these
supplies, it was time to start raising awareness of my race. I started asking friends to
come; I created a Facebook event advertising my race and providing detailed information
about it. I spoke to every J.R.O.T.C. class here at Creekview and handed out my
registration forms. I also left a donations jar in the main J.R.O.T.C. room. The biggest
problem that I encountered during this project occurred on race day; bad weather came
due the day of my race, and it was unfortunately very rainy and stormy. For safety

3. purposes, I told everyone who showed up to go home after giving them t-shirts. My
sister and my best friend stayed to run the whole thing, so most of these pictures are of
them. Even though I made everyone go home, I still raised money by selling the t-shirts
and accepting donations. Overall, I ended up raising $109.31, which I donated to the
Veteran Support Organization (VSO).
My project facilitator was one of my cross-country coaches, Mr. Brown, who also
is a teacher here at Creekview. I chose him because I know him very well, and because
he is very familiar with organizing races for cross-country. However, I took charge in this
project and did the most part of it by myself. He helped me when I had questions, but I
did not have many.
I faced many challenges while producing my race. I had issues with several dates
and times at certain locations before I figured out when and where I would actually host
my race. I also ended up having to change my original race date more than once due to
personal events, such as soccer tournaments and family occurrences. I also had to bring in
my t-shirt design several times to the screen-printing shop due to lack of a professional
design-making program. The day of my race was also a problem I encountered. Due to
weather, it did not turn out to be as busy as I had hoped, which is why I sold my extra t-
shirts that I had.
Throughout this whole process, I recognized that organizing big events is not
something I would still want to pursue. However, I am glad I was able to raise money to
give to an organization that I know is helping get veterans off the streets every day, and I
will still continue to donate any extra money I have in the future to that organization. Are
there any questions? I want to thank you for volunteering your time.