Zombie 5K supports Casper's Poverty Resistance Food Pantry - Casper Star-Tribune Online

Zombie 5K supports Casper's Poverty Resistance Food Pantry - Casper Star-Tribune Online

Daniel Edwards dropped his plastic gun on the sidewalk as zombies loomed. The 6-year-old crawled through an opening in a wood obstacle course and hopped through a line of tires on the sidewalk past another zombie.

“I’m not scared of zombies,” the boy said before he started the Zombie 5K Fun Run on Saturday along the Casper Rail Trail path downtown to the Beverly Street underpass and back. The fundraiser for Poverty Resistance Food Pantry featured the race and a street festival complete with games, kids’ activities, a costume contest, vendors and live music.

About 25 racers participated with almost as many volunteer zombie assailants ambling through the course along the route trying to grab the runners’ flags.

This is the second year of the Zombie 5K Fun Run, which helps the food pantry pay utility bills during the more expensive winter months, Poverty Resistance executive officer Linda Wicklund said.

Almost 20 people a day come through the pantry, which is open six days a week, the nonprofit’s semi-retired founder Mary Ann Budenske said. The pantry has supplied 575,000 pounds of food to 33,602 people and their families and pets since Jan. 1, according to information posted during the event.

The zombie event started last year as a fun way to celebrate the Halloween season and raise funds and awareness about those in need in the community.

Zombie runs are popular around the U.S. and encourage a positive trend toward physical activity, she added.

“I think people are starting to think more in terms of being interactive — not going to something where they watch but something where they do something,” Budenske said.

Joshua’s Storehouse helped with the event and volunteers included a group from Casper College’s respiratory therapy program. Some were zombies while others handed out water and provided first aid — which they performed on a runner who tripped on the sidewalk. A group from the Brain Injury Alliance of Wyoming also volunteered as zombies.

“It makes sense, because we love brains,” director Dawn Lacko said.

One family found out about the 5K on Facebook the day before and decided to be zombies because it sounded fun and helped a good cause, said Tera Brown, who brought her son and stepdaughters. They started off trying to capture flags and later cheered the racers without flags toward the finish line.

Daniel’s family wasn’t concerned about coming in first as they strolled the route. Daniel’s mother, Stephanie Edwards, was the first in the group to lose her two flags. His grandmother, Angela Edwards, used a “football turn,” to twist away from most of the zombies and kept her flags almost until the end.

The family had fun in a way that supports the community and helps teach kids to be active, Edwards said.

The best part of the day for Daniel was running through tires to dodge zombies.

“My special way of getting through the zombies is I just go around them,” Daniel said.