Running the NYC Marathon for Community Impact at Columbia

On Nov. 1, more than 50,000 runners will start their early-morning journey to Staten Island for what we fondly know as the best day of the year in the Big Apple: The New York City Marathon. Among those intrepid souls will be two of our own, Eva Kasal (CC’28, Bib #7461) and Heather Burns (Bib #67419), running to raise money for Community Impact at Columbia University.

For Kasal, a junior and the president of Columbia’s Triathlon Club, this cause grew out of years of service work. At 15, she started teaching art empowerment sessions at a shelter for women and children recovering from domestic violence in her hometown of St. Louis. When she transferred to Columbia from the University of Virginia as a sophomore, she was looking for the same kind of work, hoping to find a way to be connected to her new home. 

A walk through the activities fair led her to Community Impact (CI), which runs Artists Reaching Out, where Columbia students teach art to elementary school students in local public schools with either no fine arts programs or severely underfunded ones. This summer, as a George Van Amson Fellow with CI, she brought her art workshops to Sanctuary for Families.

Community Impact, now in its 45th year, is an independent nonprofit serving people in Morningside Heights, Harlem, and Washington Heights. It gives students ways to run high-quality service programs, all while inculcating the lifelong habit of giving back. Each year, Columbia and Barnard students volunteer about 55,000 hours through tutoring and mentoring around 1,550 local youth, adult education for 1,450 New York City residents, as well as running emergency food programs, health outreach, and housing initiatives. 

Burns is a Community Impact board member and found the organization through a mentor, Trustee Emeritus George Van Amson (CC’74), whom she met while working at Morgan Stanley. Later, while working at Jefferies, an award at work came with a $5,000 grant to the charity of her choice; she asked Van Amson where it would make the most, well, impact. She donated to CI and was later invited to join the organization’s board.

“It’s just really incredible that this is a student-led initiative to have an impact on their surroundings, not just getting an education from Upper Manhattan, but also doing something for the people of Upper Manhattan,” Burns said. “I’ve heard so many different stories of all the lives that have been touched by people receiving these services.”

Ahead of race day, we checked in with Kasal and Burns about their running journeys, how we can support them during the big race, and what the marathon means to them.

In the meantime: If you are a Columbian running the marathon this year, tell us your story so we can cheer you on come race day!

How long have you been runners?

Burns: “I was in the Army for several years out of undergrad, and I was not a runner, but I had to run, though I didn’t necessarily enjoy it. So I started running. Later, I was living in Brazil for work, and the Brazilian Real was really strong at the time, so that I couldn’t travel back much to the U.S. To meet people and to have an activity to do while I was away from family, I would travel to random cities in Brazil, visit the big landmark in that town, and then run a short race. And then those races gradually got longer and longer.”

“This will be my 11th marathon. It will be my fifth time running New York City.”

Eva, you’re a triathlete. What’s your story with running?

Kasal: “I ran my first marathon in my senior year of high school. I was really interested in just doing something that I hated, and I hated running so much … I had never even done a half-marathon. I did that marathon just to finish, and at the end of it, I said, ‘Oh, I’m never doing that again.’

“Then I learned about Ironmans … I had never done triathlon. I didn’t even know how to clip into my pedals, but I was like, ‘I am going to do this.’ I did the Ironman 70.3 in New York last fall, right at the beginning of my time at Columbia. When I was doing that, I saw two guys racing who had Columbia tri-suits on, and that’s how I found out about the Triathlon Club.

“I had, during my Ironman training, gotten really injured in my knee, and so my run was my worst leg of the race, and I decided, ‘Okay, I am going to heal, and I’m going to go qualify for the Boston Marathon.’ ... I put six months into that, and then I ran Rockaway Beach Marathon this past spring, and I cut off an hour and 20 minutes from my marathon time.

“I think that I just have a stubborn personality that I enjoy trying to find these things that are really uncomfortable and that I’m not that great at, and then seeing how much I can adapt.”

Do you have times you’re aiming for in New York?

Kasal: “Because New York is so hilly and the last one I did was so flat, I think that anything under 3:30 I’m going to be really happy with.”

Burns: “I don’t want to be concerned about my time if it means that I can’t give a hug to somebody that I haven’t seen in a really long time. I just want to soak up every moment … I do have a time goal, but it’s kind of secondary to just really enjoying the experience and getting to be there, and wearing the Community Impact logo is just a chef’s kiss.”

How can spectators and other Columbians support you, and Community Impact, on race day?

Burns: “That’s really the reason why you run for charity: to be able to bring attention to the cause. So even if you can’t donate money, just somebody shouting, ‘Go Community Impact, Go Columbia,’ maybe someone next to them hears that and they find out about this amazing organization and can maybe one day be a part of it.”

Kasal: “We haven’t had this type of collaboration with the marathon or anything before, so most people here don’t know that this is even a thing. I think as long as you can find one person in the crowd, whether it’s somebody you know or not, to be like, ‘We’re in this together,’ it really, really helps.”

[Editor’s note: Burns and Kasal are running to raise money for the services Community Impact at Columbia University provides to the Upper Manhattan community, and you can support their runs here (Heather Burns) and here (Eva Kasal). You can track their race progress and cheer them on here.]

Any tips for people training in New York?

Burns: “My tip is just to keep moving forward. It doesn’t matter how fast you go; you just keep moving forward.”

Kasal: “It really helps to run with people. It doesn’t even have to be an official running group. I do almost all my running in the park in New York, and sometimes it has even happened that I’ll be running with somebody and we’re going the same pace and I have no idea who this person is. I’ve never even learned their name, but we just talk for the next 10 miles. 

“I think that embracing the whole magic of running in New York is running with New Yorkers.”