Team EVA runs long distances to honor vets

Long-distance running has a different meaning for Eva Casale and Team EVA — Every Veteran Appreciated. Aside from taking on the astonishing challenge of running a marathon a day for seven straight days — a total of nearly 184 miles — Casale and her teammates have made it their mission to raise money for, and awareness of, the nation’s veterans. 

“It’s not just, wow, we’re running 184 miles,” said Casale, 57, who has lived in Glen Cove for 26 years. “We’re running and we’re supporting and we’re honoring and we’re remembering all those who have served our country.”

The annual event is known as Every Veteran Appreciated Week. This year it will start at 10 a.m. on April 24, at Huntington Town Hall, and end at Glen Cove City Hall on April 30 at 4 p.m. The participants will visit veterans monuments along the way, and pay their respects.

Since the first Team EVA multiple marathon in 2016, Michael Gadaleta, of Glen Cove, the team’s logistics director, and Susan Warsaw, of Coram, a team member, have watched the organization flourish, with support from Long Islanders who cheer them on every year. Four other members of the team runs segments of the marathons, but only Casale logs every mile.

Almost every member of Team EVA knows someone who is a veteran or on active duty. Casale’s brother and father are veterans, her father having served in the Korean War. Warsaw comes from a military family as well: Her husband, father and father-in-law are veterans, and her son is now in the Army. Supporting veterans is the reason she joined Team EVA in 2016, she said. 

Gadaleta’s father was also in the Army, and his son currently serves in the military. His family, Gadaleta said, gave him a whole new level of respect for veterans. The importance of what they have done hit home after he visited national veterans cemeteries, and saw the vast number of headstones for those who have died while serving their country. 

“It definitely does hit your heart when you see how many we have lost and how many we do not show our respect to,” Gadaleta said. 

During the marathons, Gadaleta, Warsaw and fellow teammates alternate driving vehicles that lead and follow the runners. “You’re not only leading where everybody’s going,” Gadaleta said, “but you’re the leader of everything else behind you as well.” 

Each day of the marathon series, the participants aim to meet the goal of 26.2 miles. Since 2016, the team has completed more than 60 marathons and raised over $150,000 for veterans and their families. “The immense support that we’ve gotten has been incredible,” Gadaleta said. 

Warsaw added that children join the runners in the final miles, which helps morale. “Even though you’re like, oh, we have three or four more miles to go, they make it easier,” Warsaw said, “because they’re enthusiastic about it.”

The journey to help veterans started when Casale met members of Gold Star Families for Peace, a nonprofit that advocates for families of fallen service members. “I’ve been doing a lot of charity runs for quite some time,” Casale said. “And I decided that it was time to focus on these goals for the families and see what I could do to bring more awareness.” 

Casale has been running for decades. She took up the sport with her late father, Jerry Casale, in East Moriches when she was 15, as a way to exercise and stay active. Before long she realized that she had a knack for running long distances. What started as a one lap around the block, Eva said, turned into 10 miles. 

Casale ran her first marathon, the New York City Marathon, in 1983, when she was 18.

In 2006, she gained a new understanding of the power of helping people. While listening to the radio on her way to work as a director of IT for the Diocese of Rockville Centre, Casale heard the story of a family who was unable to find a kidney donor for their father. She immediately returned home, she recalled, looked up the link that had been given on the radio and realized that she met the criteria to donate. 

“Something spoke to me and said, you can help this person,” Casale said. “I don’t know why that day, that story, at that time triggered that I could help this person.”

During the subsequent medical evaluation, Casale was asked by a psychologist if donating a kidney was her purpose in life. It bothered Casale, she said, that the doctor kept repeating the word “purpose” in the singular form. She realized then that she could have more than one calling in life. “It made me think about how I can continue to help others,” she said. 

After donating a kidney and recovering from the surgery, she decided to take part in a run for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. She went on to become a board trustee for the Long Island Chapter of the organization in 2019, and the head coach of its running team. 

 “It made me think this is my next purpose,” Casale said. “I can use my gifts for running long distances to help other people.” To date, she has raised over $350,000 by running for different charities.