The Stepping Stones Lighthouse 5K and run will be returning on Sunday, Oct. 14, with organizers hoping to raise both funds and awareness to help the historic landmark.
The event, co-hosted by the Great Neck Park District, Great Neck Historical Society and Town of North Hempstead and managed by Event Power Long Island, is part of a larger campaign to preserve the lighthouse overlooking the Long Island Sound.
Charles Schneider, who headed the Great Neck Historical Society’s lighthouse run subcommittee last year, described last year’s walk as successful both financially and in terms of raising awareness – and hopes this year will be even better.
“We hope this year’s event will continue the effort to make the community more aware of the need to restore the lighthouse,” Schneider said.
Park Commissioner Robert Lincoln, who is also the head of the Great Neck Historical Society’s lighthouse restoration committee and helping plan the race, said the race would largely be the same.
“Our goal is to keep it, to restore it, and to have it as a destination for people who want to go and see what it was like to be in a lighthouse, especially out on the water,” Lincoln said of the race’s purpose.
Schneider and Lincoln both said the only real difference would be the race starting closer to Steppingstone Park in Kings Point.
Lincoln said that while technology exists to where the whole structure could be replaced by a light on a pole, it is a focal point of history for the peninsula.
“We know there were people that lived there, there were families that lived there, and there’s a mystique,” Lincoln said.
The Stepping Stones Lighthouse 5K will take start on Sunday, Oct. 14, 2018 at Steppingstone Park in Kings Point at 9 a.m. Interested participants can register online at http://eventpowerli.com/stepping_stone_5k/ or on-site; check in is from 7 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.
There will be an awards ceremony starting after the final person crosses the finish line for the top three winners of categories based on age and gender.
