On Sunday, May 20th, more than 120 Daraja advocates came out in groves to represent the Daraja girls at the 101st Bay to Breakers footrace in San Francisco. Despite being a FRACTION of the size of the other charity partners, the Daraja Academy team was the biggest group represented at the race and the worldwide team raised more money than any other Bay to Breakers charity partner. The collective effort from the San Francisco racers, as well as advocates abroad and students at Daraja, resulted in $93,000 raised from over 1200 individual donations. That amount is equivalent to 37 scholarships! Advocates flew in from San Diego, Seattle, and far parts of California to represent their Daraja partner.

A special highlight during this campaign was seeing longtime supporter Sarah Montgomery representing the team on NBC. Her passion and genuine appreciation for the girls was the perfect exemplification of the type of advocates that exist around the world for Daraja. We’re thankful the world got a glimpse.

We also want to give a shout out to Anthem Branding for designing the awesome Race for Daraja T-shirts. They make us look good!

Although Bay to Breakers champion and 2011 Daraja teammate Lineth Chepkurui was not in the US to participate, we are proud that Ethiopian female runner Manitu Daska — last year’s second fastest woman–was the first to finish the 7.46 mile course with a time of 39 minutes and three seconds!

Check out pictures of the fantastic event in San Francisco and Kenya. Here’s to another successful Bay to Breakers race! We can’t wait for next year! Only 12 months left…