It isn’t the first time for the event, but this year brings an exciting new aspect to the race. The Wink Marathon organizers are cooperating with Special Olympics Hungary and Seedling Trust to use the event in highly innovative ways to promote inclusion and social integration for disabled populations, and also to raise funds for the two charities.

100 athletes from Special Olympics and 15 young residents of Budapest’s Municipal Care Homes will take part in the race, according to their abilities. The Special Olympics athletes will run various distances and the Care Homes residents will take part in short distances at the beginning and the last 50 meters of the half-marathon race.

This is meant to show in a highly visible way that running and other sports events are meant to be a source of joy for everyone -- not just elite athletes. Wink marathon and the organizers are donating the entire amount of accumulated kilometers from the race -- as registered on each runner’s electronic chip -- to the two charities, who will then seek spon¬sors to “buy” the kilometers, with the funds going to support both charities’ work.

Seedling Trust is a non-profit Budapest-based organization that seeks to improve the lives of disabled children and young people in Budapest’s Care Homes and better integrate them into society by providing them with opportunities for sports and excursions. The Trust’s charity running initiative, Team Heart, works to establish running for charity as an effective and transparent fundraising mechanism in Hungary.

Earlier this year Seedling Trust became the first organization to organize virtual runs, in which run¬ners from all over the country could register their kilometers on an online registry for a corporate sponsor. The first such run raised Ft. 5 million, spon¬sored entirely by Market Construction.

Additional information on the race at: www.winkmaraton.com
More information on our website at www.eng.seedlingtrust.org or on Facebook