UNO sophomore Brandon Schutt and his friends got closer and closer to the end of their run across Nebraska for charity.

People in the past have run a long distance or charity, and everyone has their own personal reason for doing it.

“People have done similar stuff so I wanted to see if that was possible for me,” Schutt  said.  “I decided I would do it for the right reason.”

Bellevue East cross country head coach Connor  Mazzei was  fortunate  enough to coach Schutt, and he got to run with Schutt as well. 

“So he gave me a call early last spring and said that this is something he wanted to do,” Mazzei said. “That’s very typical for Brandon; he is very locked in, ambitious when it comes to things, especially in the world of running and in the world of charity.”

Different charities help different groups of people. There are charities for clothes, food, the homeless, and health. 

“I knew I wanted to do something that was mental health based and homeless based for part of it and then for the other part, I wanted to do something for kids who are sick. I automatically chose Children’s Hospital. That was the first non-profit I chose and then the second one I chose was Make-A-Wish Nebraska.”

When running, the runner is put under pressure to finish the race. When it comes to running for charity, the runner is put under pressure from the charities they are raising money for.

 “I looked around kind of just to understand that we’re here, we can’t just back out now, because there’s so many people back home that are depending on us. Whether that’s just getting money for surgeries or stuff like that, paying medical bills, or people in homeless shelters that could use this money to get new things for themselves,” Schutt said.

Along with Mazzei, former Bellevue East student Andrew Kasperek also got to run with Schutt. They both ran together across the state of Nebraska. 

“I felt an obligation to support my community and felt that was the best way to give back, and it was also fun,” Kasperek said. “My favorite part of the run was the camaraderie that we had. We were all doing it for the same cause, so there’s a sort of brotherhood that we felt on the run that was awesome.”

Schutt, like many people, is helping people in need because they know it’s the right thing to do. Someone as young as a college student can help many people in need.

“We need more leaders like that,” Mazzei said. “Just knowing that we have students who are willing to do this and have these ideas is exactly what the world needs.”