Marathoners go the distance for charity

MATTAPOISETT — After watching the Boston Marathon in person for the first time together in 2014, Old Rochester alumni Abby Hiller and Katrina Santos, both 29, are on their way to the coveted race as charity runners for the Boston Medical Center.

“It’s always been something that I wanted to do, but been a little bit more of a daunting experience,” Santos said.

In 2021, Hiller and Santos, who both graduated from Old Rochester in 2013 and ran on the school’s track team, ran the Amica Newport Marathon together, getting their “feet wet in the marathon world,” Santos said.

One day later, they were on the streets of Boston, cheering on the Boston Marathon runners, and as they were watching they both said, “We have to do this together,” Hiller said.

“This year we just kind of shot our shot,” Santos said.

Santos and Hiller applied for several charities, going through interview processes until they were “fortunate enough” to be accepted onto the Boston Medical Center’s team, Hiller said.

Hiller said she thinks younger generations care more about social issues, inequality and racial justice, which she said were issues she and Santos cared about and ones the Boston Medical Center focuses on.

“It’s a hospital, essentially, that is helping a lot of marginalized communities,” she said. “They often are helping their patients with little to no cost, supporting LGBTQ uninsured individuals. For BMC in general, that’s kind of something that was important to us.”

She added, “I just feel like living in Boston, that’s our community, so helping raise funds for any of these charities would be a privilege.”

To raise money, Hiller and Santos have organized Super Bowl square fundraisers and in mid-March will have an event in their favorite bar where they will get a portion of the proceeds.

“You start with your close network, and you just solicit a couple $1,000, if you’re lucky, from family and friends,” Hiller said, who has some fundraising experience from running the New York Marathon in 2019.

Hiller and Santos agreed they have had to get creative when it comes to their fundraising efforts to “hit it from as many angles as we can,” Hiller said.

“That has probably been the most challenging part for me,” Santos said, noting she’s never fundraised for a race before.

Hiller said she thinks the Boston Marathon is not only for elite runners but also for amateur runners, who she said are also important to the sport, adding the race is “like a party, and it’s super fun.”

“A big part of that party is the people who will be back in the middle of the pack and the end of the pack,” she said.

Hiller has lived in Boston for the past eight years and tries to watch the marathon whenever she can.

“There’ll be years where I’ll take the day off just to go watch it because I feel like the city becomes kind of electric,” Santos said.

Hiller said, “It’s a celebration of our city and our community.”

Those interested can help out Santos and Hiller by donating to:

https://www.givengain.com/project/katrina-raising-funds-for-boston-medical-center-87116,

https://www.givengain.com/project/abigail-raising-funds-for-boston-medical-center-86860