Thirsty Babies: What the Heck is a Chiditarod?

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen me re-tweeting a bunch of tweets from my friends who were participating in Chiditarod 2011. What’s Chiditarod? Well, it just happens to be “Chicago’s very own most important shopping cart race in the universe”!

Chiditarod is a shopping cart race/team costume contest/charity fundraiser. Teams pick a theme, decorate a shopping cart and themselves, and raise money and food donations for a good cause: to the Chicago Anti-Hunger Federation, a food bank that makes donated food accessible to individuals, shelters, schools and non-profits. Teams race around the North Side of Chicago and must check in at checkpoints . . . which are bars.

The Derailers, 2010 Chiditarod

I first heard of it a couple months ago from Melissa, who is part of my local Etsy team. She’s a member of the Derailers team, and this year they raised a whopping $5,000! Funny – according to their Give Forward page, they made a donation to the Loch Ness Mobsters team, for “protection” during the race.

I next heard of it through my friends at ^5 Functions (aka High Five). ^5 is a non-profit in Chicago that seeks to make philanthropy easier by tying it to social events. Here are some of the events they’ve held so far (photos stolen shamelessly from the ^5 Facebook page):

· Pub Crawls

· Climbing a skyscraper – this one was fun – whoever raised the most money HAD to rappel down the face of the Wit Hotel! Everyone’s favorite parrot won.

· Halloween Party, collected gifts to give to Children’s Memorial Hospital

· City Farm Volunteer Day

^5 was founded by my co-workers and friends. Smart, funny, kind, generous professionals who like to have a good time – that’s ^5.

Learn more about the Derailers and ^5 Functions:

Derailers (Give Foward page)

^5 Functons (website)

· Facebook

· Twitter

Below are some of the photos from the Chiditarod, from the ^5 team. And here are more photos from around the blogosphere. Just google Chiditarod and you’ll be sucked into hours worth of viewing.

Parrot and Pirate Ship Captain

Mermaid

First Mate

Shark

(Following photos are by Jed Sullivan, photographer extraodinaire, Chiditarod Shark (above), High Fiver and soon-to-be-missed friend - he’s moving to San Fran!)