Volunteer found race home with children


Thirty-year Crim volunteer Jan Nieuwenhuis says there never has been a lost child during the popular Teddy Bear Trot, but there have been some lost parents.

JAN NIEUWENHUIS2
One woman, Nieuwenhuis (at right in 2006 Flint Journal photograph) recalls, was escorting her 5-year-old when she stopped to tie her shoe. The child kept going, leaving Mom behind and leading Dad to wonder what happened when the kid showed up at the finish line.

“The kids are always very enthusiastic,” Nieuwenhuis said. “The parents are something harder to control than the kids.”

Nieuwenhuis, 69, of Flint helped organize the event when it began in 1988 and has been involved with the trot ever since.

Over her long volunteering stint, she also has helped put race packets together and helped with elite runners.

Among her memories of rubbing elbows with the world’s best runners are the time she picked up a Kentucky runner from the bus station at 2 a.m. and when she attended a party after the Boston Marathon on a recruiting mission.

Not a runner herself, Nieuwenhuis became involved because of a friend, former longtime race director Lois Craig.

“It’s a wonderful event here in Flint,” she said. “It’s just become part of my life.”

— Christofer Machniak