Clackamas CC president raises thousands for Salem students with 1,400-mile run
A 1,400-mile running journey is bringing thousands of dollars to help Chemeketa Community College students in need.
Tim Cook, the president of Clackamas Community College, hung up his running shoes Thursday after completing a 52-day odyssey visiting every community college in Oregon on foot.
He crossed the finish line at Columbia Gorge Community College in Hood River, having run essentially a marathon daily for almost two months.
The feat was intended to raise money and awareness of the challenges students face meeting basic needs, like finding housing or enough to eat.
As of Friday morning, Cook has raised $3,261 for Chemeketa students. His journey began June 16 at Treasure Valley Community College in Ontario, Oregon. Overall, he raised $131,830, with donations earmarked for each of Oregon’s 17 community colleges.
Donations are open through the end of August.
The bulk of the donations were for his home campus, Clackamas.
Cook stopped at Chemeketa toward the end of his journey on July 23. The college’s president, Jessica Howard, joined him for the last mile into the college’s Salem campus.
Cook said at the time that the journey was inspired by a desire to support students making ends meet. He regularly encounters students living in their cars, unable to pay bills or find child care.
“There’s so many of those stories,” Cook said. “They’re one flat tire, one missed payment from being houseless or something else, and it’s not right.”
At Chemeketa, the money Cook raised will go toward helping students with food, housing, child care and transportation, said Aaron Hunter, the college’s chief financial officer.
Cook’s feat earned praise from community college presidents and others working on higher education in Oregon, who said the mounting challenges their students face can go overlooked.
“His run really elevated the real and critical issue of the basic needs of our students who attend community colleges in Oregon and across the nation,” Howard said Friday. “It’s been wonderful to see him do this …I’m just so proud to be his colleague.”
He also earned praise for the physical effort required to finish.
“From a running standpoint, frankly, I think it borders on insane,” Ben Cannon, the executive director of Oregon’s Higher Education Coordinating Commission, told The Oregonian/OregonLive.
Cook’s wife, Paddy, accompanied him in a van and provided logistical support for the journey.
“I’m grateful for all the support from my crews, the colleges, donors and many others. This adventure has been so much more of a success than I dreamt it would be and was truly fun,” Cook wrote Wednesday on his running blog.
This article was updated with a comment from Chemeketa Community College President Jessica Howard.
Contact reporter Rachel Alexander: [email protected] or 503-575-1241.
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Rachel Alexander is Salem Reporter’s managing editor. She joined Salem Reporter when it was founded in 2018 and covers education, economic development and a little bit of everything else. She’s been a journalist in Oregon and Washington for over a decade and is a past president of Oregon's Society of Professional Journalists chapter. Outside of work, you can often find her gardening or with her nose buried in a book.
