Friend,

The idea to pick up trash while jogging came to me on New Year’s Day in 2019. I had made a resolution to run our beautiful City of Boca Raton’s streets more consistently. As I set out on my first jog of the year, I began to notice all sorts of trash on the streets. It really bugged me, so I began bringing a trash bag along with me to pick up any garbage I came across. Over time, I came to realize that running our streets also offered a great on-the-ground perspective for things in our City that needed fixing or upgrading.

In 2021, we launched Run The City, an initiative to run every mile of every street in Boca Raton – 475 miles in all – while making them cleaner and safer. It took a whole year, but we completed our mission. In running those 475 miles, we cleaned up 1,276.76 pounds of trash and identified 329 safety improvements, like potholes, broken sidewalks, and missing crosswalks. The best part, however, was that nearly 500 volunteers have joined me and participated in Run The City, helping to make Boca Raton a little bit better.

Now, in 2022, we are doing it all over again. Like last year, we started with larger roads, but now we’re back to covering neighborhoods.

A couple weeks ago, our friends at the Boca Raton Historical Society came out again to help Run The City. Together, we helped clean up over 55 pounds of trash from our Downtown.

Now I need YOUR help to Run The City.

Here is a list of the neighborhoods we’ll be hitting over the next few weeks:

  • July 16 at 9:00 a.m.: Palm Beach Farms
  • July 23 at 8:00 a.m.: Boca Square
  • August 6 at 9:00 a.m.: Hidden Valley

If you or your organization want to join us, sign up online here or respond to this email. You can get more information, check our progress, or see the results from the inaugural Run The City program last year at www.AndyThomson.com/run-the-city/

We hope to see you there!

Sincerely,

Andy Thomson

Boca Raton City Councilmember