CLEVELAND — Nilesh Shah loves to run.
"I think it's just free — freedom of my mind can wander anywhere. Sometimes I do my best thinking while I'm running," said Shah.
So when he saw an opportunity to combine his love for running with giving back, he went for it.
"So I had to run four miles every four hours for 48 hours. But to make it a real challenge, I decided to fast through the whole thing. So I didn't eat anything. I took zero calories in and only drank water for those 48 hours," Shah explained.
Shah completed the 4x4x48 challenge, started by a former Navy Seal. The vet asked each person to take the challenge further and raise money for a charity. Shah decided to raise money for the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank. He started with a goal of $5,000 but quickly raised more.
"I set the goal at $5,000 and we passed that pretty quickly. So I kind of tried to dovetail it with running, so 5k is a really common distance to run," Shah said. "So I thought, 'Oh $5,000.' Then once we passed that I thought, 'Oh I guess we'll do the 10k.' So then I moved to 10,000. And then we kind of passed that so I said, "Oh 13.1 is a half marathon,' so I thought oh right around 13,000 would be great."
So far, Shah has raised over $12,000 for the food bank. It's something the organization is grateful for.
"You know all the money he raised is going to go to such a good cause here at the food bank. For every dollar, we can provide four meals to people in need. He raised over $12,000 on this challenge and I know he suffered for every one of them too!" said Dan Flowers, the president and CEO of the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank.
Shah also volunteers at the food bank with his family when he can. He said it's a cause that he's passionate about and that's why he did the challenge.
"Bringing light to food insecurities by not eating at all and realizing what is it like to not have food. What is it like to be 'hangry' and how do you concentrate in class when you're a kid and don't have food?"
Shah said fasting during the challenge was tough but he's happy he was able to help others in need.
"It felt really good. Obviously I had a lot of people following me and just kind of giving me kudos and just kind of supporting me through the whole process so for me personally I thought it was, I mean, it had this good sense of self-accomplishment and then obviously doing something great for the food bank and tons of people donating and raised a ton of money so I thought that was great."
Flowers said the food bank has been helping more people than ever before so they can use all the help they can get.
"Demand really exploded last year. It was very clear to us that we weren't going to be able to supply the emergency food that was needed to respond to COVID-19 with just donated products that we normally have in our warehouse. And of course we don't normally have money to go out and buy food anyway, but as a result of a lot of the generosity that we experienced last year, you know a lot of people sent their stimulus checks to the food bank and helped us raise enough money so we can buy food so that's been a big part of our response."
If you'd like to support the Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank you can visit their website.