Robbie’s Run is set for April 26

The 10th Annual Robbie’s Run — the Merrick 5K fundraiser for Forever 9: The Robbie Levine Foundation, which funds automated external defibrillators and cardiopulmonary resuscitation equipment and training — will take place Sunday, April 26, at Levy-Lakeside Elementary School.

Merokeans Jill and Craig Levine started the foundation after their son, Robbie, died suddenly at age 9 in 2005, when his heart stopped while he was running the bases at a Little League team practice at Lakeside. It purchases AEDs for youth ball fields and provides classes in CPR.

Robbie’s Run will feature a 5K, a one-mile mini-run and a half-mile children’s fun run, as well as food and entertainment during and after the races. The festivities will begin at 8:30 a.m. The event has drawn thousands of Long Island runners over the years.
For the first time this year, college students can receive “Robbie’s Run on Campus” T-shirts and submit photographs of themselves running 5Ks for a commemorative photo album. Students at Cornell University, Penn State, SUNY Oneonta, and the universities of Colorado, Delaware, Hartford, Pittsburgh, Rhode Island and Vermont have already pledged to take part. More information is available at www.robbielevinefoundation.org.

Robbie’s Run will head:
• South on Lindenmere Drive.
• Make a right on Shore Road until it becomes Clubhouse.
• From there, it will make a right on Beach Drive, then turn right on Cynthia Lane.
• After that, it will make a left turn on Nelson Court and a left on Joyce Lane.
• The course will turn left on Julian Lane and then right on Rosebud Avenue before making the left turn on Florence Street.
• From there, it will turn right turn on Beach Drive, right on Alice Street and left on Montauk Avenue.
• After a right on Merrick Road, runners will head east to Levy-Lakeside Elementary School and the finish.