NYRR: Running to Make a Difference
Last spring, when Leland Yu lost his job as a cook due to the pandemic, he decided to do something significant. Rather than focus solely on his own plight, Leland took on a 12-hour running challenge to raise money and awareness for Welcome to Chinatown, an organization that supports at-risk small businesses and residents in Manhattan’s Chinatown. In December, he staged another 12-hour run.
Leland ran a total of over 120 miles in the two runs and raised $50,000.
This month, Leland is running the 2021 Virtual United Airlines NYC Half Powered by Strava to raise awareness of the plight of the Chinese community in Chinatown due to the xenophobia and racism they have faced since the start of the pandemic. He is fundraising for a group called the Chinatown Block Watch.
"It was started during the onset of the pandemic by Karlin Chan, longtime Chinatown resident and community advocate," he said. The group started out as just a couple of friends patrolling the streets of Chinatown and nearby areas to be a visible deterrent against attacks and harassment; it now consists of 20-30 members and patrols the neighborhood twice a week. "I hope to raise funds for them to provide uniforms and equipment for them to safely and effectively do their work," he added.
Leland grew up in Chinatown, and though he now lives in Brooklyn, he’s back in his childhood neighborhood at least five times a week and is passionate about giving back to the place that means so much to him. "I feel that it is my duty to give back to Chinatown because it is the world that I grew up in and am still very much a part of," he said. "My family has been in the neighborhood for four generations, and my mom still lives in the same apartment on Mott Street that my great-grandparents settled in, also where I used to live not too long ago. My world would be nothing without Chinatown."
Leland's United Airlines NYC Half course will take him over the Brooklyn Bridge, up the FDR Drive, over to the West Side Highway, and back through parts of Chinatown. Within the past year he also completed the 2020 Virtual Brooklyn Half and the 2021 Virtual NYRR Black Lives Matter 5K.
Though Leland said he doesn’t consider himself a serious runner, he's found running an effective way to deal with the stress of unemployment. “Running has been an important physical and emotional anchor,” he said. "It has served as an outlet for me to balance and express my emotions during this tumultuous year. When you’re on a run, particularly a difficult run, everything on your mind goes out the window and your whole being is focused on getting through it, getting through the task at hand. I love that feeling."
He's balanced the final weeks of training with a new challenge: cooking for a pop-up operation called Mr. Lee's, out of The Good Fork restaurant in Red Hook, Brooklyn. "It’s been great so far because I am cooking in a restaurant kitchen again and have the freedom to create," he said. "The restaurant life schedule is not particularly kind to my usual early morning running routine, and juggling the pop-up and the running mission has been tough, but it must be done!"
Learn more about the Chinatown Block Watch and donate to support Leland's fundraising effort.