For the past five years, the Long Beach Running Club (LBRC) has celebrated each birthday with a 10k relay race and a donation to a local nonprofit. Their $5,000 donation made on Oct. 30 to the WomenShelter of Long Beach (WSLB) marks the club’s largest gift yet, despite being the smallest anniversary gathering in years.
“When it comes to the anniversary I always let my girlfriend decide. We pick someone local in Long Beach and we discuss it; what we think will make the biggest impact, what the club would relate to the most,” said LBRC founder, Gus Esparza. “We have all these different backgrounds and people, this year that resonated a lot with us, after reading their story and their mission and what they’re about.”
The WSLB was founded in 1977 to help families “overcome the trauma caused by domestic abuse,” according to its website. The shelter provides safe housing for families, an emergency shelter, a 24-hour crisis hotline, counseling, social services support, legal advocacy and more.
Esparza created the Long Beach Running Club eight years ago out of Signal Hill. He and his girlfriend Sandy Nevarez have chosen local nonprofits to donate to for the past five anniversaries, with past recipients including the Long Beach Rescue Mission, His Little Feet and the Casa Youth Shelter.
Esparza said more than half of club members are women, making it “a no-brainer” to choose the WSLB as this year’s recipients.
“For me I’m a Long Beach native so it has to be from here. I want to make a difference here first,” Esparza said. “As soon as I announced it right away everyone was like, ‘Wow thank you for choosing them.’”
The relay race allowed entries for men’s teams, women’s teams, co-ed teams and individual runners. Each participant paid a $25 entry fee, which went directly to the women’s shelter. The race was followed by a raffle with donated prizes and a celebration at Steelcraft Long Beach.
The Long Beach Running Club has 150 active members, 120 of which participated in the relay race.
“From the third [year] on, it became more [about] making a difference,” Esparza said. “We grew so much we didn’t want to just run for no reason. We wanted to run for a cause … It’s a club anniversary but it’s overpowered by the charity we donate to, and that’s what we wanted.”
Sponsors for this year’s relay race included Oakley which donated 25 pairs of sunglasses, Rocky View Family Farms which donated 100 bottles of milk, Fleming’s Steakhouse which donated a $250 gift card, Tantalum Restaurant which donated a $250 gift card, Los Angeles clothing company Nexlvl which donated reusable water bottles and others.
Esparza said many of the donations were made anonymously, some coming from out of the country. The club immediately began receiving messages inquiring about donations after posting the announcement on Instagram.
“As soon as I did it the response was overwhelming…people signed up the first day,” Esparza said. “As soon as I said what it was, we started getting donations and I didn’t even have a spreadsheet yet.”
A representative from the women’s shelter showed up before the races began and gave a speech to the club, thanking them.
“It touched a lot of people. It’s hard to keep runners quiet, but when she had the floor it was so quiet,” said Esparza.
The LBRC gathers every Sunday and Monday, averaging between 80 and 100 members. Sundays offer a long run, which is usually used to prepare for upcoming marathons and begins at Hilltop Park and then takes runners through the hills in the city. On Mondays, the club does a five-mile run that loops around Cherry Ave., 19th St. and Temple Ave.
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