Jolly joggers take to Santa Rosa Santa Run

Three hundred jolly old (and young) joggers, many sporting red suits and white beards, scampered across the edge of downtown Saturday morning for the first annual Santa Rosa Santa Run.

The event, which began and ended at Juilliard Park, was a benefit for Toys for Tots.

“It’s fun, community stuff,” said Russ Peloquin of Forestville, who was walking with his 3-year-old daughter, Kaylee, atop his shoulders. His mother, Bonnie Peloquin of Petaluma, joined them for the stroll.

“It’s for a good cause,” Bonnie Peloquin said.

Beneath blue skies, the runners and walkers set out at ?9 a.m. and made their way along the western end of Sonoma Avenue to Santa Rosa Avenue and onto the nearby Prince Memorial Greenway.

Participants, who the organizers outfitted with Santa suits, hats and beards, had their choice of a timed 5K course or a more relaxed “Merry Mile.”

Along the way, some of the later participants encountered earlier ones passing back by on the return trip. Young Kaylee, who had a silver jingle bell hanging on a ribbon around her neck, asked her father about the earlier entrants and was told that those participants were “all done.”

“Are we all done?” she asked. No, Russ Peloquin told her.

Her father said he had joined the event partly to expose Kaylee to the joys of running.

“She ran about 20 feet and said she wanted up,” he said.

The group of family and friends that organized the event sought to offer participants a way to exercise, get in the holiday mood and do something good for others.

“It’s a great way to teach kids to give back,” said Tiffany O’Neil of Rohnert Park, who with her husband, Eric, helped lead the event.

About 60 volunteers joined in the effort to produce the run.

At the park, a number of boxes were filled with donated toys. The run’s website noted that each person giving a toy would receive a coupon for $10 off the entry fee for next year’s run.

The Marine Corps League, which runs Toys for Tots, last year gathered 22,000 toys in the county, enough for 9,300 children, said Jim Jones, the league’s local toy drive coordinator.

For this year’s gift total, he said, “I hope we’re going to reach 30,000.” The league is working locally with the Salvation Army for this year’s toy gathering, sorting and distribution efforts.

Jones expressed appreciation for the Santa Run’s contribution to the toy drive and for allowing the league to join in an event that builds “a sense of community.”

You can reach Staff Writer Robert Digitale at 707-521-5285 or robert.digitale@pressdemocrat.com.