‘An organization worth running for’
Med student completes NYC Marathon while raising funds for Blue Card
When Lauren Kann of Suffern, a second-year medical school student at Touro’s New York Medical College, decided to run in the New York Marathon this year, the odds were against her.
“Four percent of runners get a spot just by signing up a year in advance through the lottery,” she said. “When I made the decision to run, on August 28, just two months before the marathon, the first thing I did was comb the New York Road Runners website,” the nonprofit that organizes the race, at www.nyrr.org., searching for nonprofits that still could host runners.
“All of the organizations that are looking for runners or have waitlists are listed there,” she said. “New York Road Runners allows runners to search by causes or level of affiliation. Some of the open spots required a $10,000 fundraising commitment. I wanted to run for an organization that supported causes I cared about, like Chai Lifeline, Sharsheret, ASPCA, or other initiatives supporting animal welfare, wildlife conservation, or water scarcity issues, but they did not have openings.
“Time was not on my side, so in late August, I asked about waitlists. When I noticed that the fundraising page for Blue Card was active, I registered with them immediately.” (The group is at bluecardfund.org.)
Just two days later, Ms. Kann learned that someone had dropped out from Team Blue Card, leaving an opening. “On August 30, I had a spot,” she said. “I was going to run in the New York Marathon.”
Every runner must raise a minimum of $3,000 to qualify for the team. “Respectful of the timing (or lack thereof), Team Blue Card told me to try my hardest, letting me know that if I couldn’t meet my goal, they would be forgiving,” she said.
Ms. Kann, who was a student at SAR Academy, the day school in Riverdale, had been involved with many Jewish organizations and initiatives, including volunteer work and fundraising, “but I’d never heard of Blue Card,” she said. “I quickly did my research, starting with a close friend who is involved with Holocaust survivor projects with UJA. She raved about Blue Card’s mission and work. Then I contacted the spouse of one of my teachers from SAR who runs the Claims Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.”
She learned that Blue Card works with nearly 3,000 Holocaust survivors who are at or below the poverty line, helping them with their financial, housing, medical, and dental needs, and supporting their mental, emotional, and physical health.
The organization’s name comes from the blue paper cards that were issued to Jewish donors who raised funds for people who had lost their jobs because of the antisemitism before World War II. Every time a donor made a gift, another stamp was added to their card.
After she learned about Blue Card, “I was certain that it was an organization worth running for,” Ms. Kann said.
On September 1, just after receiving the green light from Blue Card, Ms. Kann set off for an eight-mile run to assess her fitness level. She felt good afterward, looked at a calendar, and decided that the race in November was possible for her.
Both of Ms. Kann’s maternal grandparents survived the Holocaust. “My grandfather survived in the mountains, fighting with the partisans,” she said. “My grandmother and her sister survived Auschwitz, but the rest of her family perished in concentration camps.”
Lauren has a twin sister, Rebecca, who is also a runner and a student at Touro New York Medical College, just one year ahead of Lauren, and an older brother, Josh, who lives with his family in Israel.
Ms. Kann’s dad, Michael, planted the running seed. “I first started running as cross-training for soccer,” she said. “Soon my dad and I were running half marathons together.”
“At SAR, many of my 15-year-old peers ran the Miami half marathon for Yachad,” the Orthodox Union’s organization that supports people with disabilities. “You always knew the students who’d traveled to Miami that weekend, because they came back to school on Monday morning very sore.”
Whenever she arrives in a new city, Ms. Kann goes for a run there, she said.
After she ran the Miami half marathon, she transitioned to trail running, competing twice in the Suffern Bear Mountain Trail Challenge in Harriman State Park. “Living at home in Suffern, I do a lot of trail running,” she said. “It helped with training for the marathon, but there aren’t enough trails that are flat.
“My dad has always been the biggest athletic influence in our family. When I told him that I’d be running in the marathon, he was extremely supportive. He’s run 17 marathons.
“Even with the truncated training schedule, Dad and I planned my training for the next nine weeks on a piece of scrap paper. Then we did some runs together, going over every portion of the route.
“‘I hope you like Brooklyn,’ he told me.”
Initially, Ms. Kann’s attitude about the marathon was casual. “But when my friends reacted so enthusiastically, I knew what a big deal it was,” she said. “My friend Noa Friedman, who had signed up for the marathon in the spring, had been asking me for months to run with her,” she said. “She was the positive peer pressure I needed.”
This month, Ms. Friedman ran for Team Sharsheret and wore a shirt honoring one of the hostages, who is also a runner.
Ms. Kann is passionate about Judaism, Jewish causes, and Israel, and she is fluent in Hebrew. After four years of high school, she did a half year gap program at a seminary — Midreshet Ein Hanatziv — on a kibbutz in northern Israel. “Ninety percent of SAR graduates study at yeshiva or seminary,” she said. Next, Ms. Kann became a foreign volunteer with Mahal, an Israeli government program that allows Jews from around the world to join the IDF as lone soldiers without making aliyah. She became a medic, and served for 18 months.
That experience was meaningful to her then, she said, and has become even more meaningful to her since October 7.
After she returned from the IDF, Ms. Kann went to Cornell University, earning a bachelor of science in environment and sustainability with a concentration in applied chemistry; she minored in Near Eastern studies and did all that in three and a half years, graduating in December 2021 “I was very involved with the Grinspoon Hillel Center for Jewish Community during college,” she said. “I joined the executive board after my first year, lived in the Center for Jewish Living on campus, and served as president of Hillel during my junior and senior years.”
Hillel did not have its own building at Cornell when she was there, but it’s building one now, and Ms. Kann is on the committee; she’s fundraising for a plaque honoring all Cornell students who died in action in the IDF. “Thus far, $1,800 has been raised,” she said. “They’re breaking ground this summer, and the plaque is near and dear to my heart.”
After taking some time off for travel and volunteer work, Ms. Kann applied to medical school; she is now a second-year student at Touro, with an interest in disaster medicine and emergency response work. Her love of nature and the outdoors influenced her decision to study medicine using the perspective of One Health, which she describes as a public health concept rather than a medical field. “It’s where public health meets human, animal, and environmental health,” she said.
Ms. Kann applied to Touro because she wanted to be near a robust Jewish community full of young people. “Touro is in Westchester, and it’s a perfect location,” she said. She hopes to continue her volunteer work with Jewish causes.
Even with the rigors of medical school, it is important to Ms. Kann to remain active. “My love of outdoor and physical challenges have made me an expert skier, Mud Fun finisher, endurance hiking half-marathoner, and most recently a marathoner.” Other passion projects included researching international Jewish communities, creating an interactive periodic table, and choreographing flash mobs for friends’ weddings. “Although I’m an amateur, I love having a good time,” Ms. Kann said.
On November 3, Ms. Kann competed in the NYC Marathon, along with 55,000 runners from around the world. She finished the race in 4:43:53 and raised $3,200 for Team Blue Card.
To learn more about the NYC Marathon charities, go to nyrr.org/tcsnycmarathon/runners/charities. Blue Card Fund is at bluecardfund.org.
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