VOL. 35 | NO. 20 | Friday, May 20, 2011
Ellie's unlikely, life-changing Run
By Hollie Deese
photo by Kristen Hayner
Seven years ago, 10-year-old Ellie Ambrose was sitting in church with her family when a missionary from Brentwood-based African Leadership spoke about a recent trip. While speaking to the congregation, he showed a video that became etched in Ellie’s mind.
“It showed this mom, and she was holding her little boy and she was bawling and begging, ‘Please, please, can anyone help me because there is no way for me to pay to buy my son food or medicine,’” Ellie says. “Her son was so skinny because he hadn’t eaten in so long it literally looked like a skeleton with skin over him.
“Just watching the video of this little boy and his mom, the desperation that she had because she had absolutely no way to provide him any food, showed me how blessed I am. I live in a really privileged part of the world and just watching that kind of shocked me.”
The 7th annual Ellie’s Run for Africa 5K race and family fun day is May 21 at Percy Warner Park (Vaughn’s Gap cross country course at Hwy. 100 and Old Hickory Blvd). To learn more or help with the mission, visit elliesrun.org or like them on Facebook.
So she went home and spoke with her parents, John and Barbara Ambrose, about how she wanted to help. She kept at it for a few months, asking repeatedly what they could do to help the people in the video. Christmas was rolling around, and her mother told her if she was still interested after the holiday, they would do something. Of course, Ellie says, she thought perhaps her daughter would have moved on to another project by then.
“She thought I would get really excited with Santa and forget about it, but I came back to her after Christmas,” Ellie says. “But she wanted me and my siblings to know that we can do anything we set our mind to.”
So while most kids her age were still reveling in Christmas bliss, Ellie was compelled to help. In 2004, with the help of her parents and a team of volunteers, she launched Ellie’s Run for Africa, a 5K race that raises funds for schools in Kibera, Kenya, one of Africa’s largest slums and home to more than 1 million people, all living in an area of land the size of New York’s Central Park.
And while that first run almost didn’t happen for lack of a chair (one came on board at the last second), it has grown steadily every year, with more than 1,000 runners expected this Saturday. And Ellie attributes the success of it all to the support she has gotten from the very beginning.
How Ellie’s Run has helped in the past six years:
- Funded construction costs for the New Dawn Academy – a secondary school made of shipping containers stacked on top of each other – which serves 160 children a year.
- Provided finances for construction and operational support for the Emmanuel Vocational School, an eight-classroom training center that teaches adolescents trades like welding and sewing, which later become marketable skills and primary sources of income.
- Helped approximately 400 children a year attend primary school by providing uniforms, books and shoes, in addition to funding for building construction and maintenance.
- Provided additional funds to support clinics and orphan homes in Kenya, Uganda and South Africa.
“One of the most amazing things is that we have seen it grow and become something totally different from when it first started,” she says. “It has gone from us having no idea what we are doing to having a team of 30 volunteers who work all year round to get this race going. We have some amazing volunteers who do so much work for it.
“The people in Nashville have made it a reality, because as a 10-year-old I just couldn’t have done this.”
Now 17, The Christ Presbyterian Academy junior has managed to raise more than $275,000 with Ellie’s Run and has made four trips to Kenya to visit the children she has helped. These visits only inspire her to work harder back home raising money with the run.
“When we go to Kenya and meet the kids, it is one of the biggest blessings,” Ellie says. “On the last trip, there was a kid who went all the way from elementary through middle school and he was able to go on to high school. He sat down with me and wanted to thank me and everyone in America who has helped him with the run. He said if it weren’t for the school he would probably be dead now like a lot of his friends.
“With school, he was given a place to sleep because he was an orphan and he was given one meal every single day, which is huge for them. With the school, they got health care and an education. And he is off at college now because a family in Brentwood is paying for his tuition. Hearing stuff like that is always hugely inspiring and makes it completely and totally worth it.”
Not that it has been without its challenges. She is a kid after all, and like most teenagers has a pretty packed schedule with family, school, sports and, now, prepping for what comes after high school. She knows she wants to study nursing but is unsure if she will start right away or take a gap year to help set up an orphanage in Kenya.
“It can be really stressful but I put little blinders on,” she says. “But if you look up, and people send stories of the kids we are helping, and the second you read one of those stories, you are blown away and realize how insignificant what you are holding on to is.”