The time of year has come when most students are thinking about how to spend the summer, perhaps daydreaming of sunny beaches or scrambling to land an internship. NC State student Jacob Hackim has already made his plans — he’ll be running (yes, running) across the country to benefit the young adult cancer cause in an event known as the 4K for Cancer.
In an era when there is a benefit 5K run every weekend, a nonprofit organization by the name of the Ulman Cancer Fund chose to take things to the next level.
“We wanted to do something that no other organization is doing, run across the country,” said Maeve Koch, program coordinator for the 4K for Cancer.
The idea came from the original 4K for Cancer bike rides, which began in 2001, and awarded some grants to UCF. In 2011, UCF acquired the bike rides, and then expanded to include the run in 2013.
But while the team of 30 or so runners that completes the run each summer each runs roughly the equivalent of a half marathon per day, that’s not all. Over the course of the event, participants also do service projects, such as delivering “chemo care” bags full of supplies to make hospital stays more pleasant, award college scholarships to young adults impacted by cancer, and make connections with local community organizations like churches and schools.
Beyond dedicating essentially an entire summer to the run itself, runners also dive into the cause well in advance of the actual event. One important part is fundraising.
“I’m shooting for $5,000 by May 15, which will go directly to the scholarships that UCF gives out,” said Hackim, a junior studying electrical engineering.
A large arm of UCF’s program is sponsoring bone marrow drives, which Hackim has also been heavily involved with in the last few weeks.
Surprisingly, Hackim is undertaking this immense physical challenge with no formal experience as a competitive runner — he says he has always regretted never going out for track in high school — but that’s not to say that the preparation hasn’t been intense.
“You don’t need to be in peak Olympic physical condition to do it, but there’s lots of training,” Hackim said.
While the 4K for Cancer is a one-time thing for Hackim, he intends to stay connected after completing the event, as many others have done in the past.
“They stick back as alumni of the 4K and mentor new runners […] I want to do that for the next generation, the 2018 summer runners,” Hackim said. “Some of the runners also end up getting jobs with UCF too, and I think that would be cool.”
Hackim said that UCF has a significant number of volunteers involved, particularly at their Baltimore headquarters, and that he is interested in potentially becoming involved in that capacity upon graduation.
When asked what inspired him to do a crazy thing like run all the way across the country, Hackim said that it all started with an interest in travel and some small scale local service.
“It started out as just a cool opportunity to do something fun for me […] get out and serve the community once,” Hackim said. “Try it out, try participating […] everyone should try serving the community one time, and if they’re not interested, they don’t have to be interested, but that’s what got me into this big event, just me trying it once.”
“Service Raleigh is coming up — just get out there for an hour and try it,” Hackim added.
Anyone interested in donating, participating in the 4K for Cancer run or getting involved with another UCF program can find more information at ulmanfund.org.
To contribute toward Jacob Hackim’s fundraising effort, go to
