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The race started when Manny Esmeraldo, The Dojo’s Owner/Sensei, read an article about a product called LifeStraw. When one of these personal filtration systems is purchased, it gives clean water to a child in a third world country for a year. He thought it would be great to raise money to purchase a large quantity of this product and send them to children Haiti.
So together with his staff, they organized their first event. Last year, they raised over $11,000 for Wounded Warriors. They had over 150 people attend and it was a huge success.
Esmeraldo, who has been operating his studio in Stamford for the past 20 years, lives in Monroe with his wife Dawn and two sons, Manny Jr. and Mateo. He will be opening his second studio in Westport on Sept. 2.
With the amount of work entailed in opening another location, Esmeraldo felt he needed to skip the event this year. However, his staff, Ryan Matherne, Laura Frattaroli and Sarah Malhotra, offered their assistance in order to make the race happen. Beverly Haynie also assisted in helping to pull details for the race together.
“This year, with the entire opening of the second location I was kind of like, all right, this is a lot, we’re not going to do it this year, but then my staff, who is totally awesome, said sir, could we handle some of the work to do Dojo Dash this year, and I was like, yes," Esmeraldo said.
This year’s event will be for the Stamford EMS and Stamford Hospital. The reason for this is because the school’s program director, Frattaroli, had a heart issue last year. She had no idea she had anything wrong with her, it was very unexpected. She was hospitalized at Stamford Hospital and needed to have surgery.
Thomas Nero, who is head of cardiology at Stamford Hospital has a student at The Dojo, so Esmeraldo set up an event with Nero and trained everyone in CPR. They also got an AED (automated external defibrillator) device for the school.
“Laura was physically working really, really hard not knowing that she has this heart issue condition going on. So it all kind of punched me in the gut because I was like, oh my God, if something happened to her, it would have been horrible.” Esmeraldo said.
The premise of the race this year, is to raise awareness of heart disease and the importance of getting physicals. This year’s event is being sponsored by Stamford Hospital, Stamford EMS, BPM DJ’s, Road ID, Stamford Bike & Run, Mish Mosh Market & Acme Sign Company.
“Last year when we did it we had to have a policeman there and we had to pay him and he donated it all back to the Dojo Dash. How rock and roll is that?” Esmeraldo said.
Students, parents, grandparents, have attended these events in the past. Anyone can sign up. It’s being held at Westhill High School on Sunday, Sept. 14 from 10 a.m. to noon and costs $40 per person. Festivities start at 9:30. There is 400 meter run for kids at 10 a.m. followed shortly thereafter by the 5k. Call the studio for more information at 203-322-2433.
Robyn Blosio Bova is a Stamford native and a Realtor for Higgins Group.
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