Cristina Solorio has a competitive streak 5 kilometers long.
The 40-year-old personal trainer isn't satisfied unless she finishes among the top three in her age group whenever she runs a 5K road race. "I love 5Ks because I like fast and I just like to run fast," says Cristina, who averages 7-minute-miles during her races.
Cristina's competitiveness, though, has led her to be a winner in another category as well: humanitarian.
Over the past decade, Cristina has personally raised more than $100,000 for Project Open Hand, a San Francisco non-profit helping to feed the needy, while at the same time finding a way to personally deliver thousands of pieces of much-needed baseball gear to poor children in the Dominican Republic.
βIt was kind of like the best of all worlds. Like my love of running, my love of baseball and then a good, charitable event too.β
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The charitable event Cristina is talking about is the Giant Race, one of San Francisco's biggest annual road races. This year's race brought together 20,000 runners to compete in distances from 5k to half-marathon.
It was the first race though, back in 2007, that turned Cristina's attention from the physical to the philanthropic.
Attracted by the idea of a finish line on the field inside AT&T Park, Cristina signed up for the inaugural run. She sent out a few notes asking for donations to Project Open Hand, the race's beneficiary, but didn't put too much effort into fundraising. Which is why she was surprised, when checking the race's website a few weeks before the event, that she was the No. 1 money-raiser.
"Wait, I'm top fundraiser, what?" Cristina remembers thinking. "And I said, 'Oh well now I wanna stay at No. 1. My competitiveness kicked in.'"
She didn't even know at the time that there were prizes for being the No. 1 fundraiser. Not only did Cristina get to throw out the first pitch at a San Francisco Giant's game, she was given two, free round-trip plane tickets to anywhere in North America.
Cristina says it would have felt selfish to have done all that work for charity only to reward herself with a vacation, so she looked for a way to pay her prize forward. The answer came to her on TV. It was just about that time that Cristina saw a documentary on baseball in the Dominican Republic. One thing she learned was that good baseball equipment was a rare commodity for children in that baseball-mad country.
"They would fashion baseball mitts out of milk cartons and play with the caps of the water jugs, that's what they'd hit instead of balls and stuff."
So Christina headed to her local sporting goods story, bought as many baseballs as she could afford, and used her free tickets to book a flight to the Dominican Republic.
The following year, Christina was again the race's top fundraiser. And the year after that. And the year after that. And every year the race has been run.
And even though the free tickets are no longer part of her fundraising award, every year she has taken donated baseball equipment to the Dominican Republic.
The equipment for this year's trip is crammed into large plastic containers in Cristina's garage, where massive Giants World Series banners also hang. In addition to the standard balls, mitts, helmets and gloves, she is now bringing drawstring backpacks and various school supplies.
βI try to talk to them about [education]. Iβve even had them show me their report cards and the ones that bring their report cards get the first pick of things,β she says smiling.
Now with many years of fundraising experience under her belt, Cristina says she has learned many things. One that stands out to her in particular, is how much one individual can accomplish with limited resources and a willingness to talk to people.
βI can just do what I can on my own and that can be enough...I'm starting to reach people and it's little, it's on a lower level, but it's just as well.β
Another added benefit she says, is that through her, others have a chance to contribute to the causes she is passionate about.
βItβs a great feeling and the even greater feeling is that people are using me as the outlet to give also. People that maybe donβt have that time or resource to travel and want to give and be a part of it.β