“It was 2011 and David Gerstein was living across from the Arkansas Arts Center, right along the route of the annual Little Rock Marathon,” writes Sean Clancy in Sunday’s (1/29) Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock). “Gerstein, principal cellist for the Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, told himself that he would run in the next year’s marathon…. ‘I did a 5K first, went up to a half-marathon and then I did the full one,’ says Gerstein, 32.” In 2014 at Walt Disney World, “Gerstein competed in the Dopey Challenge, which included a 5K, 10K, a half-marathon and a full marathon…. He [collected] more than $9,000 for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis. ‘It gives the races so much more meaning,’ says Gerstein…. [At] Arkansas Children’s Hospital … he played his cello for the babies in the hospital’s Infant/Toddler Unit…. Social media and Gerstein’s connections through the symphony help with fundraising. He’s also not afraid to call upon his considerable musical skills to help bring in donations for his runs…. Gerstein, who has also started dabbling in triathlon, says he doesn’t have another fundraising run chosen just yet. But when he does, he’ll likely to do it for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.”
Posted February 2, 2017
