Runners Race To Raise Funds For Injured And Fallen First Responders
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Runners lined up in Towson on Saturday to honor Maryland's fallen first responders.
A 13-year-old boy by the name of Zechariah Cartledge led the way.
Cartilage is the founder of the nonprofit organization Running 4 Heroes.
"It's definitely incredible," Cartledge said. "I wasn't expecting a big turnout like this so I want to thank everybody in the Baltimore area."
Since it was founded in 2019, the organization has donated over $300,000 through monthly $10,000 grants to injured first responders and to the families of first responders who were killed while on duty.
To date, Cartledge has conducted 1,214, one-mile runs, one for each fallen first responder. That includes runs for fallen Baltimore police officer Keona Holley and Baltimore firefighters Lt. Paul Butrim, Lt. Kelsey Sadler, and Kenny Lacayo.
Holley was ambushed and killed while she was working the overnight shift in South Baltimore in December 2021.
Butrim, Sadler, and Lacayo died after part of a vacant house collapsed on them while they were battling an early morning fire in January 2022.
The Baltimore Police Department declared the deaths of the three firefighters as homicides on April 13.
"Seeing all these first responders here and it's possible they have experienced a loss in their friends or in their department, this run is also going to be for them," Cartledge said.
The Punishers Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club helped bring Zach to Baltimore to honor the fallen.
"Our first responders are like all of us," Chuck Ritz of the Punishers said. "They go to work each day and hopefully they'll be able to go home to their families afterward—and a lot of them don't make it home."
