Manchester-by-the-Sea's Bailey Buchanan (far left), local attorney and volunteer VP of Stairs4RTroops poses with other founders of the grueling, but rewarding, charitable stair climbing event.
Alas, the professional football season is behind us, and the Patriots are again Super Bowl champions.
But it also means the kick off for sign-ups kicked off this week for a unique and worthy charity event called Stairs4RTroops that will take place at the home of the six-time NFL Champions, Gillette Stadium. Set for May 19, participants run the stairs in the lower bowl of the enormous stadium, spurred on by live music and the hundreds of others who are there for the same reason: to raise money to build specially adapted homes for the most severely injured, post-9/11 veterans through Homes For Our Troops, another veterans charity.
Local Manchester resident, Bailey Buchanan, is an attorney at a law firm in Beverly and a founder/VP of Stairs4RTroops. In the beginning, she said, it was her college mate, Matthew Appel, who had the idea hosting a stair climb for veterans causes. He assembled a volunteer group of Boston area professionals with various connections to veterans causes and started to think about what they could do to make a difference. For Buchanan, whose dad and several Uncles are veterans, athletic events that raised money for veteran issues was an exciting idea that was easy to which to commit.
So, five years ago they began with their first event, a simple challenge to run the stairs at Harvard’s football stadium. Buchanan said the stadium was smaller back then, but because of the extreme depth of the stadium steps at Harvard, it was incredibly challenging. Yet, fire fighters showed up to complete the challenge in full gear. Veterans climbing in other’s memory carried giant banners and flags. It was incredibly touching, and difficult.
Three years ago, the event moved to the larger venue of Gillette Stadium. That year, in 2015, the group signed on bigger sponsors including Raytheon and the Gillette Stadium organization has been incredibly supportive.
Local sponsors here on the North Shore include: A. Lyons & Company of Manchester and Harbor Consulting of the Beverly Cummings Center.
Over the years, more than a thousand people have participated in five S4RT events and the group has raised more than $185,000 for severely injured veterans. Many local residents have climbed those grueling stairs and raised money, including Stacey Friends, Karen Elwell, Linda Porter, Darrel Perkins, Adam and Syndi Zaiger, Krista Julian, Kim and Bob Hofeldt, Lesley Smith Denman, and Rus and Erika Brown, among others.
The May 19th S4RT event at Gillette Stadium will be the 6th event. S4RT will have live music, the Patriots Mascot, Pat the Patriot, and given the Super Bowl win, maybe even an airing of the New England Patriots’ Three Games to Glory movie! The event is family friendly and runs from 10 to 1 with a special firefighters’ wave at 11 pm.
