The city received more than $10,000 from Nike to restore public recreation facilities throughout the city.
Nike concluded its 12th week of the “Nike Glo Run” on Wednesday when company officials presented a check to the city for $10,530.
The Glo Run kicked off on Jan. 23 with 75 runners, which generated $375. At the final run along the beach Wednesday, more than 300 had showed up. Nike donated $5 per runner, with proceeds going to unspecified fitness projects in Santa Monica.
“More than 2,000 people came and ran. It was all word of mouth,” said Nike’s LA marketing director Jason Cohn. “We have now built something that will hopefully last.”
Elaine Polacheck, the city’s open space manager, said it hasn’t been decided where the money will be used, but one option would be partially funding the new fitness facility at Virginia Avenue Park, which is scheduled to be built in January.
Nike officials would like to see the money go toward running activities, like restoring the track along San Vicente Boulevard, or the popular climbing stairs off of Fourth Street and Adelaide Drive.
“We will work with them to determine where the money should go,” Polacheck said. “We’re going to use it so it benefits the largest population... the biggest bang for the buck.”
The idea to give back to the Santa Monica community — the running epicenter of Los Angeles according to Cohn — was born on a cocktail napkin at the Library Ale House on Main Street.
Cohn said he and his friends talked about what the company could do for the fitness community in Santa Monica while running together at Will Rogers State Park in the Pacific Palisades.
The idea quickly became a project. “We wanted to turn running from a daytime chore to nighttime fun,” Cohn said. “People have a lot of stress in their lives and this is a way to give back.”
Nike Glo Run organizers provided runners with reflective equipment, blinking armbands and running buddies for an after-work run in the dark along the coastline.
Now that the “running gospel” has been spread and runners know about it, Cohn hopes to make the Glo Run a reoccurring event. Another one is planned for this fall.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 11, 2002. Read the original PDF.