Did you ever wish that an owl would deliver a letter inviting you to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry … are you still waiting? Then we’ve got the team for you! The Hogwarts Running Club, named after J.K. Rowling’s legendary school, has all the magic of Hogwarts without the dementors. With virtual races that sport names like Weasley’s Wizarding Wheezer 5K and the Voldemort V-Miler, the club is right out of the Harry Potter books. They have 1,500 members using Charity Miles and have logged over 50,000 miles! We are inspired by the teams’ passion for reading, running, and helping others. You can join them in the “teams” feature (under the menu button) and start logging your miles for your favorite house.
Hogwarts Running Club was founded in 2014 by Brian and Dawn Biggs as a way to raise funds for a worthy cause (at the time it was pediatric cancer research) and to encourage people to live healthier and more active lifestyles. Why the name Hogwarts Running Club? Well, you can blame Brian for that one. He never got his Hogwarts letter and continues to believe that, even nearing the age of 40, it might show up someday. Since its creation in March 2014, Hogwarts Running Club has raised over $65,000 with the generosity and dedication of thousands of runners and walkers from all 50 states (plus DC, Puerto Rico & the Virgin Islands), 10 Canadian provinces, and a total of 28 countries.
In July, a member of the Hogwarts Running Club, Candi McCane, reached out to us asking if we had ever heard of Charity Miles. Regrettably, we had not. She suggested we consider creating a Hogwarts Running Club team within Charity Miles so our members could earn “House Points” for miles logged and make an even greater charitable impact on the muggle world. We were blown away by the idea, so we collaborated with Candi to create a House Cup competition. This one random contact has turned into an entirely new way for our community of running Potterheads to interact with each other beyond our six virtual running events each year. In just the first 5 weeks alone, more than 1,500 HRC members have logged over 50,000 miles and have clearly demonstrated our overall mission: to change the muggle world one mile at a time.
We have 5 teams in the app. As many know, Hogwarts is divided into four student Houses and those Houses compete each year to win the House Cup and earn the bragging rights that come with it. So, Hogwarts Running Club has created a Charity Miles team for each House (and a fifth one for those who identify as “Faculty” or “Independents”), and charity dollars generated will be translated into House Points that will go toward the House Cup. Utilizing Charity Miles, we’ve created a friendly rivalry between the teams to earn House Points in the wizarding world, while encouraging our members to stay active and raise real money for real charities in the muggle world.
While Achilles International was our third Charity Partner of 2015, we want our members to get out there and log miles for whichever charity means the most to them. In our experience, the more personal the connection, the greater the motivation to get out there and log some miles.