Blue Ridge Hospice’s 20^th Anniversary Butterfly 5K Run & Walk to Honor Your Heroes took place at Blandy Experimental Farm in Boyce, VA, on Saturday October 15, 2022. We welcomed participants for a 3.1 mile loop around Blandy’s grounds featuring scenic mountain views and trees in the midst of changing colors for the fall. Back at the finish line, families and other community members were welcome to join us for kids activities, a free outdoor yoga class, a raffle, and the Blue Ridge Fall Market where we sold treats and goodies kindly donated to us by local businesses to raise money for Blue Ridge Hospice.

Congratulations to our category winners!

A Family-Friendly Event

Each year, we welcome runners and walkers of all ages, people in costumes, babies in strollers, and four-footed companions to join us. Whether you are trying to set a personal best or you just want to enjoy a brisk morning walk with family and friends, our annual Butterfly Run is a wonderful event!

In the area between the starting and finish lines, we hosted kids activities including face painting and pumpkin decoration.

We had a raffle with baskets filled with items kindly donated to us by local businesses and our Blue Ridge Hospice Thrift Shops. We also set up the Blue Ridge Fall Market, where we offered fall-themed treats and goodies donated to us by friends of the organization such as Geneva Jackson, and local shops, farm markets, and other vendors. All the proceeds of these activities will support our patients and families.

Local photographer Sharon Fisher and her students were there to snap some free fall-themed family portraits (you can download yours here), and Caroline Felix from Shine Yoga in Winchester taught an outdoor yoga class as part of the morning’s events.

Lastly, our mini running bib display offered everyone a chance to offer their hero by writing their hero’s name on a mini running bib and adding it to the display.

Hundreds of heroes were honored this way.

Thank You For Supporting Blue Ridge Hospice

The Butterfly Run is our organization’s biggest annual fundraising event.

As the community’s not-for-profit hospice provider since 1981, we rely on the support of partners, friends, and donors to provide the highest quality end-of-life care to anyone in our community facing serious illness. We have always been a community-focused organization. That’s why we love hosting the Butterfly Run each year – we get the opportunity to organize a wonderful outdoor family event for our community, and our community gets the opportunity to support the essential comfort care services we provide.

Together we raised more than $35,000! These funds will help provide unfunded services and charity care to our patients and families, and support our Inpatient Care Center.

Thank you to all the runners, sponsors, partners, donors, volunteers, and everyone who came out to join us for the 20^th anniversary of this important event.