More than 500 persons, mostly youth, participated in a run organised by Making a Difference (MAD) to mark three years of its foundation in Dehradun on Sunday.
In Sunday's event, the participants first assembled at the Pavilion Ground main gate, where they signed on the banner prepared by the MAD group - as a request to the Chief Minister to save the dying streams of Dehradun. The Mayor of Dehradun, Vinod Chamoli then flagged off the run. As the crowd proceeded along the seven kilometres long route via Clock Tower, Kishannagar and Ballupur Chowk towards the finish line- KV ONGC ground, all the participants, who were mainly students, ran with immense enthusiasm.
Four stop points had been spread over the route to provide water and glucose to those in need. Seema Bisht stood first in the girls' category while Saurabh Gusain stood first in the boys' category with Arshia Sangwan and Naveen Parmar as runners up in the girls and boys categories respectively. Two special prizes were also given on this occasion, one to the senior most citizen participating in the event -Jasveer Singh Sachdeva and the second to the junior most- Siddharth Chauhan. Addressing the gathering at the programme organised after the completion of the run, MlA Subodh Uniyal appreciated the efforts undertaken by the young members of the group for raising public awareness on civic sanitation and environmental protection while also undertaking cleaning up drives in different parts of the State capital.
The event also saw the release of the MAD newsletter wherein the group's close to 200 activities had been chronologically enumerated and explained. The groups chairperson Abhijay Negi, co-founders Aakash Bhatia and Samarth Khanna were also present on the occasion along with young group members and concerned citizens.