(Submitted photo)
By Mark Ambrogi
Tim Ottinger will start his Zionsville Optimist Club one-year term as president on the club’s biggest day of the year.
The Zionsville Optimist Club’s Hit the Bricks 5K Race and Fun Run & Walk is set to begin at 8 a.m. Oct. 1 at Zionsville Community High School.
Ottinger said this is the 34th year for the 5K run.
“It’s our biggest fundraiser of the year and primarily goes for the scholarship we award every year to a Zionsville high school graduate,” said Ottinger, publicity chairman of the 5K. “Every year we award a $1,000 four-year renewal scholarship that the seniors apply for.”
The race starts and finishes at ZCHS. Ottinger expects approximately 250 runners.
The Optimist Club was founded in 1981. Ottinger, a 1972 ZCHS graduate, has been a club member since returning to Zionsville from California in 2009.
Ottinger said his former ZCHS classmate Jim Haines, a Zionsville optometrist, was the first ZOC member and was instrumental in starting the 5K.
Ottinger said Traders Point Running Club and Eagle Elementary Running Club will take part in the 5K this year.
“Everything the Optimists does is for youth,” Ottinger said.
Ottinger said the Optimist Club held a fundraiser last spring to raise money for Eagle Elementary playground equipment.
Each year in early December, the club buys and wraps holiday gifts designed for local families with specific needs. Ottinger said the gifts are then taken to Zionsville Middle School, which helps coordinate the program.
The Optimist Club supports the Zionsville Boys and Girls Club, ZCHS After-Prom Event, Little League and Lincoln Park Music Series, among others.
Registration is available online at zionsvilleoptimist.org or 7 a.m. on race day.
