Once upon a time there was a group of people who ran around in costumes pushing shopping carts through the streets of San Francisco. It was a pursuit without purpose, a silly lark. For years people kept dressing up and running about, until they didn’t.
It cropped back up in other cities, this Urban Iditarod. The whimsy simply would not die! Here and there it emerged like a mushroom from the duff, part of a silent underground network connecting everything. Then one day it appeared in Chicago as a charity food drive. The CHIditarod became a mighty force for good. Still silly and quite odd, it found its purpose and grew and grew.
It happened then that the people who created this new version of the event came back to San Francisco to present their story at the Global Leadership Conference. One person sat in the audience enthralled and thought “I want to do that too! That looks like fun.”
It seemed scary and hard and I was afraid to try, but the idea wouldn’t go away. It sat there mocking me, this spark of a plan that needed to be. “Do the thing!” it said, grinning at me with delight. Finally one day I got out the maps, and the journey began. You see the people in Chicago had left a trail of breadcrumbs to follow.
Armed with information I plucked up my courage. With the help of a wise friend who knew about city councils we asked for a day in the park downtown, and permission to run the race through the streets. I got on the agenda for the next meeting and prepared to argue my points. I would tell them the story, and they would love it too. I hoped.
On the day of the city council meeting I was nervous. Not knowing what to expect I dressed up nice and went to the town hall to ask for their support. The meeting was long and boring, and mostly full of people complaining and being mean to the council members. I had never seen anything like this, and it made me sad. These people were working to help our town and they were shown much disrespect. I was not looking forward to my turn.
When I stood up at the podium the feeling in the room changed. They thanked me for bringing this event to their town, and were excited to see it grow. They asked about how to say the name (co-tah-titta-rod), and if we ran the race with the food inside the carts (we don’t) and that was it. We were approved. We met with a street safety guy to go over our route and make sure we didn’t interfere with traffic or endanger our racers. They wanted to know if we talked to the businesses downtown and had their support, which we did. That was it.
No arguing points or convincing. No struggle to explain why it was important. They wanted us to do it every year. They were happy we picked their town! I got the insurance we needed with the help of the wizard, we paid the city’s fees for a day in the park, and our shopping cart race was born.
2017 was our first race. We had five teams, and raised about 400 pounds of food for our local food bank. In 2018 we had seven teams come out, and we brought in 1,047 pounds of food to donate to the Redwood Empire Food Bank.
Our volunteers are growing too, and taking on more each year. We have people doing checkpoints, and bike marshals riding the route, and people holding down the fort in the park too. I ran the race with a team both years. It’s a lot, I’m not a runner, but it’s really fun and silly and I’m glad I got to see it from that angle.
It’s all done for free using google forms and paypal at this point. Eventually we’d like to level up to using more of the software provided by Rod in a Box, but for now it’s working using the tools we have and keeping the overhead low.
All three Burning Man Regional Contacts from the North Bay region are organizers for the event, along with a small group. Most of us are Burners, some are family and friends, and everyone is having fun doing good. We have meetings that are part social gathering and part getting stuff done. It’s loose and kind of goofy but it’s happening.
We are growing like an amoeba. Parts of one group break off and form another. It’s not easy to explain, you kind of have to see it to understand, so growth is slow, but that’s ok. Cotati is small. The event is slowly growing it’s own flavor, but we will always be a part of what started in Chicago.
The folks from CHIditarod have been super supportive of us, and we are very grateful for their help. Burners Without Borders has also gotten behind our project, and helped us to get the word out.
Burners Without Borders project listing
The Redwood Empire Food Bank which receives our donations has also been key in finding our way. REFB wrote a letter of support to include in our application to the city. That helped us look legit.
Rod in a Box is a template. You are all invited to make your own event in your home town. CHIditarod and BWB built the tools. I’m here to tell you it’s a really fun way to show your civic responsibility. Oh yeah. And we got in the local paper. The writer is also a Burner. Because of course!
The End