The third annual Freed to Run™ marathon series is less than a month away, and I wanted to take a minute to express my sincere gratitude to our sponsors, teams, and my family. My goal this year is to raise $180,000. The funds raised provide legal aid to underprivileged families to help them navigate the stress of medical-related legal challenges.
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Mike Freed will be the first to tell you, he doesn't run at the fastest pace. But his strides are making big impacts in the First Coast community.
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The exponential growth of Jacksonville Area Legal Aid’s largest fundraiser, Freed to Run, will get a boost this year from three newly appointed co-chairs of the event: Darnell Smith, Florida Blue’s market president for North Florida; Eric Krall, mortgage sales manager with Community First Credit Union; and Ryan M. Ludwick, an attorney with Fisher, Tousey, Leas & Ball.
The trio will work to attract more sponsors and relay teams, with Smith focusing on the health-care community, Krall on the business community, and Ludwick on the legal community and related industries.
All proceeds from the Dec. 15-20 Capitol to Coast six-marathon relay series will go toward an endowment for the Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership and will be matched at 125% by Baptist Health. The NFMLP provides civil legal aid to pediatric patients and their families to ensure they have safe and sanitary housing, as well as access to health care, educational accommodations, and other needed services.
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One September day in 2017, the foundation of Marckly Charles’ world collapsed.
His widowed mother died at age 50 of a heart ailment, leaving him head of the household and parent figure for his three younger siblings. He had no relatives to help out.
Charles was 20.
“It was tough,” he said. “I didn’t know where to go or who to reach out to.”
Charles had a longtime goal — becoming a nurse — which kept him centered after his mother’s death. He and his eldest sister worked, and he paid the mortgage and other bills and kept the family steered straight ahead. But he encountered legal obstacles when he tried on his own to gain custody of his younger siblings, get his mother’s estate settled and obtain public benefits for the family. He started saving money for an attorney to help him navigate.
Read MoreJALA In the first year of a five-year campaign to build a $2.25 million endowment for the Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership (NFMLP), Jacksonville Area Legal Aid has raised $638,000, with $365,000 coming from a 125 percent match Baptist Health made on $284,000 in private donations.
Read MoreNational Conference of Bar Presidents It is the season to celebrate diversity – a worthy aspiration indeed. Unfortunately, however, once a cause rises to the level of having its own day or month, it risks having its significance lost in the noise of celebration.
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ATTORNEY AT LAW MAGAZINE A fundraising effort like no other, Freed to Run started in 2017 with one man – Gunster shareholder Mike Freed – and exploded in 2018 into a community-wide, 157-mile-long celebration of philanthropy benefiting the Jacksonville Area Legal Aid’s Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership to the tune of $414,000.
Read MoreFLORIDA BAR Freed to Run teams gathered in front of the Baker County Courthouse for the last of six consecutive marathons through which Jacksonville attorney Mike Freed of Gunster and 19 teams of runners raised nearly $300,000 for Jacksonville Area Legal Aid (JALA) and the Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership (NFMLP).
Read MoreABA JOURNAL Lawyers Crystal and Michael Freed organized marathons and other events to raise money for legal aid and awareness of human trafficking.
Read MoreJACKSONVILLE DAILY RECORD The second edition of Gunster shareholder Mike Freed’s series of six marathon runs in six days from Tallahassee to Jacksonville raised more than $300,000 to benefit Jacksonville Area Legal Aid’s Northeast Florida Medical Legal Partnership.
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