Run to build: How Highland woman’s youth running group fostered sense of community service while prioritizing fitness
-
- Jennifer Lambert, center with green shorts, is pictured during the Highland Run Club’s annual Glow Run on Friday, Aug. 1, 2025.
-
- Jennifer Lambert, center holding poster, poses for a photo during the final day of the Highland Run Club in August 2024.
-
- The Highland Run Club is pictured in a “Pink Shirt Group Photo” in 2021.
-
- In this undated photo, children take part in a Highland Run Club activity during the 2025 season.
-
- In this undated photo, Quinn Danielson, third from right, runs during the 2025 Highland Run Club program.
-
- The Highland Run Club is shown in a photo from 2018.
For eight summers, Jennifer Lambert dedicated her time, energy and finances to motivating hundreds of youth to run for meaningful causes, as well as their own well-being.
Lambert, of Highland, is the founder of the Highland Run Club, a program that challenged area children and teens to run 10,000 miles in a 10-week period for various fundraising efforts.
Youth of all ages run throughout the summer from early June through the beginning of August. The program begins the season with a Glow Run, and ends with a 5K and 1-mile fun run.
Founded in 2018, Lambert said she initially started the club for her children and other neighborhood kids.
As a youth, Lambert said she didn’t enjoy running but started to take a liking to it while attending Brigham Young University.
“I started running for mental health,” she said. “I didn’t even like running growing up at all. I hated it.”
With her new found passion for the sport, and her own children beginning to express interest in a morning run club at their school, and other active programs, she wanted to find a fun way for kids to enjoy fitness and make summer memories.
“It’s a safe place for them to reach goals, to break records, to fail and to come close but not quite make it,” Lambert said to describe the program.
In the first summer of the Highland Run Club, youth runners would do three laps around Lambert’s neighborhood.
As an added bonus, the young runners would keep track of their mileage on a punch card in which they redeemed for various prizes, which range from clothing, cash, and other awards.
Lambert said interest from other children and their families to join the club quickly progressed.
“We started that summer on Week No. 1 with 25 kids, and then we ended the year with 80 kids by the end of the summer,” she recalled.
That number nearly doubled the following summer, when 150 area kids joined the run club. In 2020, despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Lambert opted to keep the program going.
“Because there was nothing going on, we ended up having about 320 kids in my run club that year,” she told the Daily Herald. “And it’s not that they come all on the same day. I have it Monday through Friday from 8:30-9 a.m.”
That was also the first year that the program hit its goal of running 10,000 miles in 10 weeks to raise $10,000.
Lambert said more than 1,500 kids have been a part of the program throughout the eight years.
She has seen runners log more than 200 miles during the course of a summer.
At its core, Lambert said the Highland Run Club is a fun way for youth to enjoy fitness, setting goals, while making memories they’ll never forget. It underscores the meaning of community and competition.
That includes fundraising efforts for various causes, including Walk for Water and RODS Heroes. Last year, the club raised $14,000 for a young boy fighting cancer.
“2024 was a pretty magical year, and that is a very personal cause,” Lambert told the Daily Herald. “We did bake sales for it and a lot of people donated money for it. We were able to help the family quite a bit, and then they came back and helped this year.”
In January 2024, Quinn Danielson was diagnosed with stage 4 neuroblastoma, a rare form of cancer typically found in infants and young children.
His mother Karen said her son, who was 5 at the time, underwent several rounds of chemotherapy, surgery, two bone marrow transplants, radiation, and immunotherapy.
Quinn played on the same soccer team as Lambert’s son and when she learned of his condition, she wanted to find a way to help the family.
“After learning more about his story, my heart was overwhelmed,” Lambert said.
Karen Danielson said the money couldn’t have come at a better time as the Lindon family was in the midst of Quinn’s second bone marrow transplant and dealing with the financial strain of medical expenses, daily gas and food costs.
“It gave us a breath of fresh air because we were spending at least $100 a day in gas, just like rotating having his siblings come up to spend time with him,” Danielson said. “It’s expensive to have a kid in the household medical expenses.”
Despite the life-altering illness, Quinn’s mother says he is now in remission, attending school, and has shown remarkable resilience through partaking in the run club this summer.
“His oncologists were amazed that he ran almost 40 miles this summer,” Danielson said. “They couldn’t believe it, after what he’s been through.”
Quinn, now 6, still faces some challenges, his mother noted.
“He has profound hearing loss from the chemotherapy, which is really difficult, and some other medical things — but, overall, (he’s) doing amazing,” she said.
The Highland Run Club wrapped up its 2025 season Aug. 1 after raising over $10,000 this summer to support the organization Thanksgiving Heroes, a nonprofit that delivers meals to families in need across Utah.
However, after nearly a decade inspiring youth fitness and community stewardship, Lambert has decided to end the club after personal and family changes, including her 13 year old son who has an opportunity to play soccer on an international level.
“He got selected to go to the Donosti Cup in San Sebastian, Spain, in July of 2026 and we’re going to be applying to four academies in Spain and two academies on the east coast for him to attend,” she said.
As Lambert prioritizes family, she assures there are talks for the run club to continue but in a different capacity.
“There will most likely be a run club of some sort in that area in Highland, next year,” she said. “I just can’t say what it will be or how it will be structured, I know I will not be the one over it.”
Despite the uncertainty of the run club future, Lambert believes the impact will be ever-lasting.
“I get emotional talking about it because I just love it so much,” she told the Daily Herald. “The impact is so much more than just a fun place to come and run. It’s very life changing for a lot of these families and the community. So I think for me it is a lot of sacrifice, but it doesn’t feel that way just because of what it produces and the impact it has in the community.”
Mothers like Karen Danielson also hope a similar program is created and offer the same physical and community benefits as the Highland Run Club.
“It’s so beneficial for kids to just have that in the summer where they get up for something and they exercise,” she said, “I just think it’s so important for mental health and strength that way. I really would love to see more kids have the opportunity to do it.”
