Ruby's Run

If you have kids and live in the Richmond metropolitan area, please consider having them participate in Ruby’s Run this coming Saturday morning. The event is for kids by kids and is intended to raise money for the Ruby Harvey Memorial Scholarship Fund to pay tuition for children attending the Second Presbyterian Child Care Center in downtown Richmond. If you don’t have kids or live outside the Richmond area you can still make a donation.

For those readers outside the Richmond area, Ruby Harvey was the youngest member of the Harvey family who were brutally murdered on New Year’s Day in the southside Richmond neighborhood of Woodland Heights. (Stories about the murders and aftermath can be found here.) Ruby attended pre-school at Second Presbyterian Child Care Center.

I did not know the Harvey’s but in some ways I felt like I should have. My family resided in Woodland Heights for over a decade and moved out sometime prior to the Harvey family moving in. Both of my kids attended Second Presbyterian Child Care Center, as did Ruby Harvey. I have one son who attended Fox Elementary School, as did the older Harvey girl. We had many friends in common. All of that plus the complete randomness of that awful crime meant my family could have just as easily been the victims. It is hard to describe to readers outside the Richmond area how very unnerving this event was to Richmonders, particularly parents of young children.

Second Presbyterian Child Care Center is a high quality urban day care center. The population of the center is diverse and reflective of the city at large. As mentioned above, the run is a fundraiser for a tuition scholarship fund at the center.

(Thanks to F.T. Rea at Slant for the heads-up on this event.)