NOTRE DAME SENIOR KEOUGH PUTTING TOGETHER UNIFIED BY COLOR 3K RUN/WALK ON SATURDAY (2025-03-20)

By Brian Fees
Southern Tier Sports Report
SOUTHPORT — For Notre Dame senior Makenna Keough a lot of her senior year has been spent preparing for this Saturday.

The Crusaders track and field and soccer standout has been putting together the Unified by Color 3k Run/Walk, an Ernie Davis Awareness Color Run Fundraiser.

“I am really excited for the project,” Keough said. “I have spent months preparing for it and I”m excited that Saturday it’s finally going to come all together. I think we have a good theme. The theme is united by color, to bring the community together and unite the community in acceptance. Focusing on the fact it’s about what’s on the inside that really counts.”

The race, which begins at 10 a.m. at Notre Dame High School, is $20 a person, or $15 for a student to register.

“I think we are going to have a good turnout,” Keough said. “I think we have about 100 participants signed up already and hopefully we get a few more the day of registration, so I think it will come together nice.”

The event is part of a service project for the Ernie Davis Memorial Scholarship, which is about raising awareness for the life of Ernie Davis and his legacy through a service project.

For Keough, when it came to doing a project she wanted to do something both in the school, and the community.

“Within the school I started the Ernie Davis Varsity Club and during Black History Month in February I presented about the legacy of Ernie Davis, because I think it’s really important that the school and the students realize what a great athlete he was, but also his character and leadership qualities and integrity and the way he faced adversity.

“In the community, I wanted to do something that involves the community as well and I thought since I do track and I like running I thought a color run was a different and unique run. It’s not timed, but it’s still a 3K and people get to be showered with color and it brings everyone together.”

Having the event at Notre Dame made things even more special for Keough.

“This is my home track, so I thought it was really special to have it here,” Keough said. “And, also the funds from the fundraiser are going to be donated locally to the Ernie Davis Community Center, so I think it’s a big community event and brings everyone together.”

The support Keough has had has been a big help.

“The school, and everyone in the community have been great,” Keough said. “I really appreciate the support. I have worked with so many different people trying to pull this together and am so happy, they have great ideas and are so helpful.

“I definitely talked to a few of my closest friends and they all signed up to run, or volunteer, so I’m thankful for their support as well.”

There were things along the way that pushed Keough past her comfort levels as she worked on the project.

“That hardest thing about putting this all together was the online registration,” she said. “Making the registration online, it’s something new to me. I had to use tin sign up, it’s something I’ve never done before and also it pushed me outside my comfort zone to present to the whole student body and pull this color run together. It’s a big event, so it definitely pushed me outside my comfort zone.”

Right from the start Keough had a lot of work to do with the project, and it’s taken up a lot of her time this year.

“It was definitely a big project and I knew it was going to be a lot to take on, so at the beginning I had this long to do list of a bunch of things to do and I just took it step by step, crossing things off the list and now it’s two days away and it’s finally here and I’m excited to have it happen and have it done and over with so I can relax a little bit.

“This has consumed a lot of my senior year, but I’m so lucky to have the support system I do and have the teachers here at the school and my track coach, they are all very supportive and I’m thankful they are so supportive with my project.”
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PHOTOS BY BRIAN FEES

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