Written by Tomas Woolston, Student Intern

Brianna Francis came to Stanford Youth Solutions, formerly Stanford Home for Children, in hopes of organizing a project to fulfill her high school graduation requirements. She proposed to do this by hosting a 5k walk/run to raise money as well as awareness for Stanford Youth Solutions, and donate all the proceeds to support our programs.

The walk was held at Gibson Ranch on Saturday, April 20th. The final count of participants was seventy-seven people, an impressive turnout for a student organized walk. The walk generated a profit of $665, all of which will support the youth and families served by Stanford Youth Solutions.

Brianna organized the project to be as efficient as possible with multiple to do lists, outlines, and goals in her planning process. Although she carried a heavy work load at school, she admits she could not have achieved the results she hoped for on her own. She received help from family and close friends, as well as assistance from the sponsors she recruited, including Togo’s, Jamba Juice, Sacramento Dental, Farmers Insurance, Commercial Interiors West, DataCom Solutions, and Alhambra.

Her goals for this project were mainly to see this walk through to the finish, and prove to herself she was capable of hosting an event of this magnitude, while encouraging donations to Stanford Youth Solutions. The biggest issue she ran into along the way happened to be relying on others, to make sure everything would be completed by the required deadlines. If given the opportunity to host another run, she says she would do it all again.