Hundreds of supporters will come to the Boardwalk on Sunday, Oct. 18, for the 15th annual HERO Walk and Run, a day of remembrance, hope and community action dedicated to promoting the use of safe and sober designated drivers.
Benefiting the John R. Elliott HERO Campaign for Designated Drivers, the annual fundraising event is expected to attract an estimated 400 family members, students, law enforcement officers, civic organization representatives and sponsors in support of the campaign’s mission to end drunk and impaired driving fatalities and injuries.
Registration begins at 9 a.m. at the Sixth Street Civic Center. A 1-mile fun run will be held at 10 a.m., and the 3K walk begins at 11 a.m. Walkers will receive a commemorative 15th anniversary T-shirt. Online preregistration is $30 for adults and $20 for students at www.herowalkrun.org. Day-of-event registration is $35 for adults and $25 for students.
Miss Ocean City Kayla Magazzu and Miss Night in Venice Nadia Bea Marzano are scheduled to appear, along with Junior Miss Ocean City Lynnie Becker and Little Miss Ocean City Shiloh Little. The day also includes music, face-painting, a hands-on desktop DUI simulator for students and a display of 15 HERO police patrol cars wrapped with the campaign’s blue-and-gold insignia and message: “Be a HERO. Be a Designated Driver.” The Egg Harbor Township cheerleading team will also perform.
At 10:30 a.m., a moving HERO Memory Ceremony will honor the lives of individuals lost to drunken drivers at a banner featuring pictures of DUI victims.
Now in its 26th year, the HERO Campaign partners with schools and colleges, law enforcement agencies, bars and taverns, businesses and communities to promote designated driving. More than 200,000 drivers nationwide have taken the HERO Pledge to become safe and responsible designated drivers. The campaign has also wrapped more than 50 police cruisers with the blue-and-gold HERO colors and message: “Be a HERO. Be a Designated Driver.”
“If everyone had a safe designated driver to take them home, we could end drunk driving,” said Bill Elliott, chairman and CEO of the HERO Campaign and father of Navy Ensign John Elliott of Egg Harbor Township, the inspiration for the multistate campaign. “We want to be a constant reminder that no one should ever drive drunk when there are so many options to get a safe ride home.”
He said the campaign is making a difference, citing a Stockton University poll in which 40% of 800 respondents said they became designated drivers because of the campaign’s designated-driver message.
Ensign Elliott was killed in a head-on collision with a drunken driver in July 2000, two months after graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy. He was driving home from Annapolis, Maryland, for his mother’s birthday celebration and was preparing to enter naval flight training that fall.
