Today marked Tenkara Karate’s second annual “Kick-for-the-Cure,” an event created to raise money to support research for an incurable disease, Sanfilippo Syndrome. The turn-out was just as good, if not better than last year. Shihan Patrcik Hussey was very pleased to see that members of the Tenkara Family, friends, and other local martial arts schools came to kick and raise awareness about Sanfilippo Sydrome- an extremely rare disease that hits very close to home with Tenkara.

Kathy Buckley, a third degree black belt at Tenkara Karate of Saratoga, has a son, Matthew, who was diagnosed with Sanfilippo several years ago. Buckley spear-headed the event, and made the day possible with many helping hands from the Tenkara Family and local sponsors. Local restaurants, boutiques, and businesses donated baskets and gift cards to be raffled off and placed in a silent auction; for a $3.00 admission at the door, participants had access to all the delicious food they could eat and a day of fun.

After mingling and munching for about an hour after the event “kicked-off” at noon, participants of all ages moved to another studio where Tenkara Black Belts took turns holding bags for them to kick. Each person participating pledged to do a certain number of kicks, with pledges ranging from 20 to 1000 kicks. The highest number of kicks thrown was 1200, by Tenkara green kyu Ben Mason.

The day came to a close with revealing the winners of the raffles and silent auctions, as well as finishing off the last of the cupcakes and homemade cookies. Last year Kick-for-the-Cure raised just over $7,000, and with today’s turn-out we have hopefully raised even more this time around!

Osu!!

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