2016 CECE Fondotón
What in the world is a ‘fondotón’ you ask? Well, that’s a great question. Search as hard as you want in your Spanish to English dictionary, but the word will not exist. Even the almighty Google is not terribly helpful on the topic. A ‘fondotón’ is our play on words, ‘fondos’ for funds and ‘maratón’ for marathon. For those more graphically inclined:
fondos + maratón = fondotón
The fondotón is an event hosted by the Comunidad de Estudiantes Cristianos del Ecuador (CECE) in order to help raise funds to provide scholarships to make our national training events more accessible to our students. This year, CECE is hosting two very large events in the coming months. At the beginning of March we have our National Camp where we will investigate the book of Isaiah over 4 days. A few short months later, we will be hosting the Encuentro Cristiano Universitario Andino (ECUA), or the Andean Christian University Student Assembly, for students from throughout Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, and Columbia. As you can imagine, these events cost money to put on, especially since some students are coming from other countries.
That’s why the fondotón was created – to help raise funds and lower costs making our discipleship events more accessible. The way we do this is by setting up a one-hour race where students will raise up a team of sponsors who are willing to give a certain amount of money per lap the student runs in the one hour time block. Sponsors can give as much or as little as they want – we have seen gifts of $0.25/lap to $10/lap or more! Others give a simple lump-sum (independent of how many laps a student runs). Any gifts are more than welcomed!
In the end, our students are able to work to raise funds to bless their fellow students, they are promoting CECE and our mission on the university, as well as the personal benefit of getting a nice workout for the day!
This year, we are also promoting the fondotón by creating personalized trading cards so that potential donors can see the runners and choose one to support. Most of the cards are funny with random skills that have nothing to do with running or fitness, but rather are just an expression of their personality. As students begin to share the cards and raise sponsors and awareness, we hope that it will create further momentum for the event itself.
Enjoy looking through the album of participants we have participating this year:
If you would like to personally sponsor a runner for the event taking place on February 13th in Quito, let me know by sending me an email at brett.schaffner@somoslacece.com. If you want to give a special gift to help lower costs and provide more scholarships for students you can email me for that as well. We are so excited to be reaching the universities of Ecuador with the gospel and hosting such events to continue developing and discipling our students. Thank you for your support and partnership in events that eternally impact the lives of CECE students!
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