In honor of UW-Madison student Neha Suri, who passed away last February, UW Rec Sports will take part in an exercise challenge to donate food to needy families.
Participants in the Million Pound Challenge commit to exercising between one and three times each week. For each hour they log into the challenge website, the Madison-based Princeton Club will donate 10 pounds of food to the Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin.
Suri, a student from Singapore, majored in journalism and political science and worked at UW Rec Sports and The Daily Cardinal.
""We have about 100 student employees and Neha was a huge part of our team, and [participating in the Challenge] was one thing we could do that we could honor her,"" said Mike Warren, UW Rec facilities and informal recreation coordinator.
He added that exercising and donating to people in need also helped bring the staff together to ""bounce back"" from her loss.
According to Warren, last year the student and professional Rec staff met their goal of 20,000 pounds of food, coming in second in the competition. This year, they set their sights on first place and plan to donate 30,000 pounds.
""This year I decided that I wanted to be the number one group for Neha, so we are opening it up to basically anybody in our facilities or that works out or wants to honor her,"" he said.
Ranked seventh in the competition so far, the team has 65 members and has donated more than 2,225 pounds of food. The competition continues through April 1.
Participants can register on the challenge website http://www.princetonclub.net/mpc/teams.html under the team name UW Rec Sports—In Memory of Neha Suri.
Overall, Warren said, the effort is meant to honor an ""awesome person"" whose impact has stayed with her coworkers.
