Our mission: to empower people to become better through community and movement at every level.
Our Core Values
Movement for All
We’re a run club for everyone, even if you don't consider yourself a runner. We welcome anyone looking for an opportunity to better themselves.
Better You, Better Community
The place you run should be more than just a place where you run. A better version of yourself includes helping the community around you be better.
Progress, Brick by Brick
Our goal is to build better people, not just better runners. This means exercising your body and mind, one good move at a time, every single day.
Our Story
Lee was almost 400 pounds overweight when doctors told him he had to make serious life changes. He started by changing his eating habits and lost over 100 pounds, but Lee knew it wasn’t enough.
He knew he had to add another habit: movement. Lee wanted to start running, but he was intimidated to go out by himself and didn’t know where to start. He told his friend and neighbor Gerald, who was a marathon runner and was also looking for a local run club to join. Since there weren’t any clubs in their neighborhood of Newark, NJ, or any groups that taught people how to start running safely and joyfully, they decided to start one and run together.
At first, it was just Lee, Gerald and a handful of neighbors and friends. They would run 2-mile distances through downtown Newark on Sunday mornings and write the name of their crew, “Brick City Run Club,” on the sidewalks with chalk.
Then the pandemic happened. As the world shut down, so did their Sunday meetups. And as the world got sicker, their mission became clearer. Brick City Run Club could help people live healthier and provide a safe community in a time of isolation.
And as the world got sicker, their mission got more clear. Brick City Run Club could help people live healthier and provide a safe community in a time of isolation.
With local Newark businesses suffering because of the pandemic, they figured they could support them as well. For every Sunday #BrickCity30, the founders would buy food from a local bakery or restaurant for the club’s post-run fuel.
They started meeting up again at an empty parking lot on Sunday mornings. It became sort of like a track where people, from all different levels of fitness, could work out separately and socially-distanced, but still together as a group. They’d set a timer for 30 minutes and some people ran a 5K around the lot, others walked with their dog, and others split the time walking and running. It didn’t matter how they spent the time moving because everyone did the same 30 minutes. That weekly half-hour session became the #BrickCity30 and the lot became a place where intimidated runners could come and start building new habits, one brick at a time.