Wednesday I mentioned becoming a marathoner. And it’s true, I’m setting out this year to finish the Chicago Marathon in October. (pause for dramatic effect)
I’ve been building up for this challenge for some time. Last year I ran in the Chicago Half Marathon (see my mom and I after I completed the race in the picture at right) and as part of my 30 at 30 challenge (check out what I’m doing to celebrate turning 30 this year), I added the marathon as one of my goals.
I take on the marathon with excitement, nervousness and a slight twinge of fear. All of which are motivating me to move forward and toward my goal. And to get me ready to run 26.2 miles, I’ve joined with TEAM TO END AIDS Chicago, a training and fund-raising organization that raises money for AIDS awareness and research. I’ve pledged to raise $1500.
Wow, $1500 could go a long way in fighting this disease.
With each donation, I’m motivated even more to train and prepare for the race. With each show of support, from family and friends, I’m driven more to wake up and stick to my training program. I wouldn’t want to let all of my supporters down. Or myself. I have to do this. I want to do this.
So far I’ve raised $500 toward my total goal. Not bad for a little over a month of fund raising. I’ve received support from family, from friends, from Twitter supporters, from neighbors. The support has come from people I expected to give, and people I am surprised to see show their support. It’s been an amazing experience so far. And I’m just getting started.
If you’d like to support TEAM TO END AIDS or my marathon running efforts, you can donate online or in person (I can take pretty much any form of payment). As always, thank you for your support!
30 at 30 Challenge: Goal #2 and #11 started
Be inspired.
Kate did and excellent job with our website. We have received several compliments on how nice it looks and how easy it is to navigate. She also went above and beyond to make sure that we were able to update and the website ourselves through Wordpress. I cannot gush about how awesome she is and how happy we are with the site and her dedication to the project.
Kate is a wealth of knowledge who served as a tremendous mentor for all of our team members while constantly improving processes and workflows. She’s a tremendous project manager, pays great attention to detail, and is able to demand results from her team with respect. At LoganSquarist she has built and led a team of dozens of volunteer contributors committed to her vision of a community resource. I would happily work with Kate again anytime!
I met Kate through the Association of Women Journalists (AWJ) and immediately was impressed (and inspired) by her creativity, drive, work ethic and use of social media. Her passion for journalism, digital media and communications overall is evident in the projects she takes on, including LoganSquarist, an online news outlet that she founded that uses social media to socialize the neighborhood. What I admire about Kate is her vitality as well as her desire to keep learning and growing personally and professionally. Kate is a modern-day renaissance woman who is multitalented (ask about her travel, knitting and marathon exploits!) and who brings instant value to any team or organization.
Kate is a real professional and a pleasure to work with. She is a great communicator and always put her client's (my company) interest first. She is tremendously personal and had a great understanding of our business and how she could help it. She is great and is a tremendous asset to any company.
Kate has an incredible amount of drive when it comes to LoganSquarist. In the six months that I’ve been involved, I’ve watched the site grow from a pet project to a respected community publication. This success can be attributed to Kate’s technical and leadership skills. From building out the site to off-hours community management and a consistent flow of content, the site improves by leaps and bounds on a weekly basis. When it comes to team management, Kate delegates tasks in an organized and efficient manner, making her an all around great and inspiring person to work with.
One of the best things I've ever done in my career is work with Kate Hamilton. Her enthusiasm for all things editorial, not to mention her energy and passion for any project she's involved with, is contagious. In addition to being a natural born leader, she's also a creative type, a thinker, a stickler for details, and someone with incredible vision and the drive to get things done. I always marvel at how she is constantly teaching herself new things. She always seems to be ahead of the curve on anything related to social media, and she also has an eye for design. This lady rocks! And she continues to be a mentor to me and others in journalism and communications.
Kate has been a fantastic resource for all things digital, whether redesigning my website on Wordpress, fine tuning my social media profiles, or understanding Google Analytics. She's an excellent communicator, and I will absolutely hire her again in the future.
I worked with Kate during my time as a community manager at Lightspan Digital while Kate was my direct manager. Kate’s communication practices really taught me how to navigate the sometimes complicated agency world. As an account manger, Kate smoothly orchestrated 10+ accounts at one time as well as help me manage and prioritize tasks in my role. Kate was a role model during my first few years in the professional world and continues to be so to this day.