Karate Kick-a-thon to support families from Newtown Around Town, posted by Jon Keeling, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Dec 15, 2012 at 1:07 pm
I have been teaching Karate and Self-Defense in this area for many years and have been organizing an annual charity kick-a-thon for quite a few years as well.
We just added a second charity option for this coming week's event (we had previously set it up to benefit Direct Relief, itself a very worthy cause). The United Way of Western Connecticut created the 'Sandy Hook School Support Fund' to provide support to people affected by this tragedy in normally very quiet Newtown, CT.
We will be attempting to perform 2013 punches + 2013 kicks in the adult class. In the kids' classes, we will try to do as many as 500 kicks. It is a challenge, to put it mildly. But we will all try, knowing that we are doing it for a great cause (or two).
Please note that this is a bit personal for me, as I grew up in Newtown. Teaching Karate and self-defense to our community is my life. I want to keep kids as safe as possible. I started teaching Karate in Newtown in 1984. It is possible that some of my past students had children at that school.
For more information on our kick-a-thon event, please see the following:
If you make a donation to support our efforts, please send me a note (jon@jkasv.com; if the Palo Alto Online staff decides to edit out this email address, hopefully they will at least keep "Please contact me through the website"). You can take the tax benefit and try to get company matching. I am just keeping track of our fundraising efforts.
Posted by Pacifist, a resident of the Professorville neighborhood, on Dec 15, 2012 at 1:53 pm
How about something more pacifist, given the tragedy?
Do you really have to promote your business in this way?
Folks: the Red Cross and numerous other agencies will help also, or you can just send the donation to whomever the karate kid says he is sending it to.
Posted by Jon Keeling, a resident of the Midtown neighborhood, on Dec 15, 2012 at 2:32 pm
Please note that I am NOT asking anyone to send donations to me or our Karate group. Please make your donations to the charity itself. We are trying to bring more attention to this charity through our event, as we have done with many charities over the years.
Also, please note that we are not just a NON-violent group but actually ANTI-violence. Our punches & kicks are done in the air. And I remind my kids very often that they are never to use their skills except in extreme situations of self-defense (which rarely, but unfortunately sometimes may happen). One of our motto's in the kids' classes is "The best defense is a good DEFENSE." :-)
View in an RSS Reader
E-mail this topic.
Print this topic.
