“You Just Can’t Help But Feel the Emotion”: Meet a Longtime Grandma’s Marathon Volunteer

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For 21 years, Duluth designer Cheryl Fosdick has volunteered at Grandma’s Marathon, 13 of those years coordinating security volunteers in Canal Park (a crew that grew from 25 then to 130 this year). In 2015, she received the Don Fennessy Volunteer of the Year Award from Grandma’s Marathon. Cheryl, whose CF Design also has an office in Bayfield, Wisconsin, volunteers at the annual Bayfield Apple Festival and the Apostle Islands Sled Dog Race as well. In advance of the 40th anniversary of Grandma’s Marathon, Cheryl chatted with Managing Editor Bob Berg about her volunteer experience.

LSM: How did you get involved as a Grandma’s volunteer?

CF: I started volunteering for the security crew with a friend of mine, who was actually running the crew with about 25 people or so. I worked for him for a few years, and he decided he didn’t want to do it anymore. I took it over, and I’ve been doing for about 13 years now. It’s changed incredibly over the years. Little by little, it amounted to more and more people, just because of the (larger) crowds and more interest in running. Just seeing more activity down at the finish line.

But then Boston happened. Grandma’s was the first major marathon after the (2013) Boston bombings, so it received a tremendous amount of Homeland Security attention at that time. And I went back and forth to the Twin Cities on several training classes to kind of ramp up quickly and take care of any concerns people had. In reality, there was only a very, very short period of time, a few months, to kind of pull things together. The security’s better now than it’s ever been, and a large part of it has to do with Homeland Security’s guidance. But also, we had essentially one policeman who was working down at the finish line. And he was pretty much stationed in one spot. And if you had a problem, you had to go find him. It’s not an easy thing to do in Canal Park at the finish of Grandma’s Marathon.

So now we have something on the order of 21 to 26 police who man the finish line and rove in teams and are really out there to observe. It’s made a huge difference in the security for the event. We work together with them; in fact, we team some of our volunteers with their tactical force people. So it’s been kind of an interesting experiment, and it makes it kind of fun for some of my volunteers to work more hand-in-hand with the police force.

… It took some time getting used to the seriousness of the issue. But I think we’ve toned it back now, and we’ve always been focused on making sure people who are there have a good time and actually don’t really understand that they’re being cared for.

LSM: What do you get out of volunteering?

CF: What I get is a much better understanding of my community. For the most part, everyone who is there is rooting for someone. Sometimes the event is a life-changing event for people. Sometimes it’s a recovery event for people. But there’s almost no one there that isn’t overjoyed to have either their participant or their own actions happening in front of crowds. It’s a demonstrative way of being joyful. There’s nothing like an event like this, or maybe the (Bayfront) Blues Fest, to bring crowds together that you wouldn’t otherwise see. In a sports event like this, everybody’s there for the same great reason. ... We’re about the 12th biggest race in the country now. This year will be a little bigger, with 10,000 or 11,000 half marathoners and 8,000 full marathoners. It’s usually 1,500 or so under that for each of the categories. But it’s a celebratory year. For every person who runs over the finish line, there’s an average of three people who come to observe that and support them. So you can imagine by the end of the day, we have 18,000 runners there – times three. It gets a little crazy, but it’s manageable. It’s better when it doesn’t rain.

LSM: How do you select the security volunteers?

CF: I go and get them. Every year I send out an email (in March). I don’t have 125 friends! I send out emails to the root people, who have volunteered before, and ask them to let me know two or three names of people I might contact, and about half of those send other names. It’s a lot of work, and it’ll carry right on through until the marathon. Some people are basic medical training; we have tourniquet training. Most of the people that we give extra training to will come back every year because they really have a special position to play. We give them T-shirts; we feed them for the whole day. We have people who will actually bring them food in their stations because (some volunteers) can’t really move. So it’s all a pretty easy thing for people to do. If they knew about it, they’d probably do it. … I like the volunteerism. It helps my business. People recognize our name (CF Design). I try to get my logo out there on all the bags that we give away. It’s shameless advertising is what it is, but it works.

LSM: What would you say to people who are thinking of volunteering?

CF: I’d have them call the marathon office and say that they’re interested in volunteering. There are an infinite number of opportunities, everything from mobile opportunities to fixed-location opportunities, preparation, cleanup, even getting involved in some of the events preceding the marathon. There’s a sales team, there’s a 5-mile race, there’s a 1-mile race, there’s a kids’ race, there’s all kinds of things bound into that whole week and two-week period basically. There’s so much room for volunteerism, it’s crazy. And it’s easy to do it. … There are a lot of millennials in Duluth. Many are part of the chamber’s Fuse group, which promotes volunteerism to their young professionals. This is a perfect opportunity.

It’s not sublime; it’s an interactive and very visible team volunteer effort that really contributes to a great crowd experience in Duluth. You take on this kind of ebullience that everybody brings forward when they’re out there. (These runners) have done something they never thought they could ever do. There are a good number of people like that; they’ve never run a marathon before in their life. And they go as a group because maybe they’re in a medical condition group, or they’ve all recovered from something, or they’re in remission, or they’ve had a terrible life story They’ve managed to come out of it and this is the ultimate moment for them. And it rubs off. You just can’t help but feel the emotion of it. And so if you want to come and see what people can do, what human beings can do – and be amazed – that’s what you should do.

LSM: Are you a runner?

CF: I ran marathons out West when citizen marathon running was still quite unique. I have a great respect for the growing numbers that are involved now. It’s a fantastic goal and accomplishment in life. I bike and I sail. I haven’t run seriously since just after college in the early ’90s. Stopped running. I actually broke my leg, and I could never get that tendinitis to clear up.

If you wish to volunteer for Grandma’s Marathon with its many related events, register online at grandmasmarathon.com, or contact Christina Nohre, 218-727-0947. (This year’s deadline to volunteer is May 21, 2016.)