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Chicomm Blog

ChiComm Helps Elmhurst's UpComing Turkey Trot

Posted by Jill McNamara on Monday, November 19, 2012

elmhurstturkeytrot resized 600Thanksgiving has grown near once again and what better way to celebrate the holiday than joining friends and family to support a good cause, right?! For the past 28 years the Dan Gibbon's Turkey Trot has strived to do just that, donating all of its proceeds to benefit organizations operating in and feeding those, in DuPage County. Last year's race hosted more than 7,600 attendees at the event, putting the predicted expectancy for this year over 8,000 people! The event has seen enormous growth each year since the 74 runners that participated in the very first 5k race. 

    I recently spoke with Tony Cuzzone, who is not only the Operations Manager of the Turkey Trot, but he's been involved in the event since its inception and is an old friend of Dan Gibbons as well. Tony says that the turkey trot actually got started as a bet among friends. Tony, Dan and some friends were at a local watering hole when Dan mentioned he wanted to do a fundraiser to feed the hungry at Thanksgiving. Most of his friends responded with “I bet you won’t!” That was enough to put him up to the challenge of proving his buddies wrong. Tony eventually became the right-hand man in organizing the event and he's been a course marshal on several occasions over the past 29 years. It is Tony's job to coordinate all aspects of the event and make sure the event comes together. This includes acquiring all the communications equipment, which he rents from Chicago Communications. Tony has been working with ChiComm’s rental department for almost 15 years and he continues to come back because the customer service is great and he's seen a good response when any issues have occurred.

“Two way radios are absolutely critical to our communication efforts. It would be very difficult to put on the event without them. The radios are very much a key component to the event itself and most of all to everyone’s safety. We have had an incident where someone had fallen and was injured and because of the radios we were able to dispatch an ambulance to them quickly.” -Tony Cuzzone

Tony, who also announces the event, joins 200 volunteers who arrive early on race day to set up the start/finish area, set up barricades, and put up mile markers and clocks along the course. Volunteers are also crucial to running the registration tent and helping with security by monitoring crowd control. City staff from both Public Works and the Police department are on duty to help orchestrate and to keep the event safe. This year 25 radios will be used for select volunteers to communicate throughout the event's 2 mile radius. Radios are distributed to the course marshals, crew members along the course, those calling split times, a person who’s out at the turn-around, security team members and people working the registration area.  limalima resized 600

 This year attendees can expect to see appearances by the mayor, a bugler and the Lima Lima flight team who is a six aircraft civilian formation aerobatic team that the crowd really seems to enjoy. 

“The turkey trot has gotten to be an icon in Elmhurst. Thanksgiving here wouldn’t the same without the turkey trot and ChiComm’s role in making the event possible.”

Thanks to Tony for sharing the Dan Gibbon's Turkey Trot history with us and for choosing Chicago Communications to be his wireless communications equipment provider all these years!

 

 For further details regarding the turkey trot or to register, visit http://www.dangibbonsturkeytrot.com/

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Jill MThis article was written by Jill McNamara, Internet Marketing Coordinator at Chicago Communications. Jill has written all of the Meet Our Techs & Employee Spotlight articles for ChiComm's blog and continues to seek opportunities for articles relating to the wireless communications industry. If you'd like to submit a suggestion for Jill, Contact Us!