Thanks to the efforts of more than 100 law enforcement agencies throughout North Carolina, the North Carolina Law Enforcement Torch Run raised $976,000 for Special Olympics North Carolina during its 2011 campaign!
Congratulations to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department, which raised $68,091 for the top place finish among all statewide departments and agencies! The Guilford County Sheriff’s Office finished a close second with $64,433 raised. Rounding out the top five were the NC State University Campus Police with $47,557; Chapel Hill Police Dept. $46,710 and the Winston-Salem Police Dept. with $33,936. For a complete summary of each participating agency/department 2011 fundraising totals, please visit www.NCTorchrun.com and click on the link called Department Challenge.
I want to thank all those officers who participate in the NC Law Enforcement Torch Run®. Your hard work and dedication to this volunteer program has led to North Carolina being one of the premier Special Olympics Programs in the world with more than 38,000 athletes registered. You can be proud that your agency‘s involvement in the Torch Run has had a positive effect on the lives of so many deserving people in your community. Special Olympics is changing lives and changing attitudes every day through our mission of providing sports training and competition to children and adults with intellectual disabilities. The time, energy and effort put in by law enforcement and corrections officers to educate the public about Special Olympics and to raise funds is inspiring! Since no fees are ever charged to the Special Olympics athletes for their participation, the funds raised through the Torch Run are vital to our existence.
We now turn our attention to the 2012 Torch Run year and already many departments are raising funds towards the 2012 goal of $1 million. A choice of two planning conferences are being offered in January (Jan. 12 in Raleigh and Jan. 19 in Hickory) to educate and motivate officers about the Torch Run. We encourage anyone from the law enforcement community to participate in one of these conferences as we will be sharing lots of exciting news for 2012.
