College of the Canyons Athletic Department held it’s 9th annual ‘Turkey Trot’ Thanksgiving morning at the Valencia campus for Santa Clarita residents to get a head start on working off their holiday feast calories.

Prior to the traditional holiday dinner with all the fixin’s, over 100 Santa Clarita residents had the opportunity to participate in a healthy fun activity the whole family could enjoy.

Lindie Kane, head coach of the cross country program at COC, has been organizing the event since 2008 for the Santa Clarita community.

“Thanksgiving day is a day for giving thanks so it’s nice to kinda come to the end of the semester and finish with our turkey trot,” she said.

However, the community event has an extremely personal origin for Kane. The run was started in to give thanks to her mother, who was diagnosed with terminal cancer in 2008.

“This started years ago when my mother was diagnosed with a brain tumor,” she said. “We (knew) nothing about what was going to happen ahead of us. She did pass away, two years after she was diagnosed.”

Proceeds from the event goes to the Bonnie Heck Think Well Foundation and the COC cross country program.

At the event, participants ran, walked and jogged a three-mile cross country course that took them through the college’s Valencia campus.

Participants started at the Cougars baseball field, continued through the campus and looped around the outside of the campus, ending inside Cougar Stadium.

The holiday run is a way to bring the community together, Kane said.

“I’ve always been real big on community involvement,” she said. “When I was growing up, my parents owned a business. My father was on the school board (and) my mother was always actively involved in the PTA, so growing up we were always active with in our community within sports, and I’ve carried that over into my coaching career.”

Despite not seeing many of the participants outside of Thanksgiving, Kane said she still feels a connection to all of them.

“We’re thankful every year for our participants. Some families that come out here only see each other once a year on thanksgiving morning, and have been with us over the course of the nine years,” she said. “So we’re excited to be out here and continue to do this and bring new families in, and we’re grateful to the for the people that come out and support the cause.”

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