At the Erasmus Charity Run during last Sunday’s Marathon Rotterdam, a record 21.203 euros was raised by 264 participants from Erasmus University. The students, employees and alumni ran the full or quarter marathon to raise money for scholarships. This will enable talented students to study at Erasmus University.
Out of 264 participants, Bharat Kumaraswami, Alumni Relations employee, collected the most money. Last year, he had already wanted to participate, but unfortunately he was just too late to register. Now he trained every week with colleagues to run the quarter marathon together.
At first, he had totally forgotten to raise money, so started his recruitment campaign late. Eventually, he had created and posted a page to collect funds and shared it on LinkedIn on which the first people donated. At work, he asked everyone if they could support him and so they met his first goal of 350 euros. But Bharat was not satisfied with that yet. He asked his family in India and the UK for help and they eventually raised the amount to 1.013 euros.
Inspiring
“My preparation was not ideal”, says Bharat. On Saturday, he had just returned from a holiday in Cuba which meant he did not feel super fit on Sunday morning. Before the start, he felt nervous, but when the starting gun rang, he ran right off. On an empty stomach, he started the 10.55 kilometres.
With his friends standing along the line to encourage him, everything went well. At the last 500 metres, everyone around him started running faster, but he actually slowed down. “The last 500 metres were difficult because I had cramp in my leg. But all the crowd towards the finish helped me through. That was inspiring.”
Proud
A day later, Bharat is sore. “That’s why I work from home for a day”, he says. But he is especially proud to have raised the money. “I was an international student at Erasmus University myself, so I know how much extra costs come with that.”
