It may have been a chilly 30 degrees outside, but 27 Grand Valley State University students and a few parents braved the cold to run for the National Arthritis Foundation.

Fraternity Alpha Tau Omega and sorority Alpha Omicron Pi teamed up on Dec. 4 to hold the first December Dash 5K Run and Pancake Breakfast.

“It’s one of the national events we can choose to do, but we wanted to do it with another organization,” said Kristin Hartwig, philanthropy chair for AOPi. “My group likes working with ATO, so we thought it would be a good plan.”

Ken Poczekaj, philanthropy chair for ATO, said his fraternity held a 5K run and pancake breakfast last year, so they agreed to organize the December Dash with AOPi.

“We’re combining efforts, and hopefully we can do this annually,” Hartwig said.

The 27 runners started the December Dash at 9 a.m. in front of the Student Services Building. From there, they went past Padnos and Mackinac Halls and through the freshman dorms, over the Little Mac Bridge, past the lake halls and the library, near Calder and ended at the Kirkhof Center.

“It’s a first-time event for us, so I think that was a good amount of runners because it’s cold and it’s December and we have people who don’t even go here running,” Hartwig said.

The pancake breakfast was held afterward at 9:30 a.m. in Room 0072 of the Kirkhof Center. It lasted about two hours.

The goal was to raise money for AOPi’s national philanthropy, the National Arthritis Foundation, to fund research grants and education programs.

According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, an estimated 50 million adults in the U.S. have been diagnosed with some form of arthritis, including almost 300,000 children.

“I think it’s a debilitating disease that a lot of people don’t know about,” Hartwig said. “(It) definitely needs more attention.”

Hartwig said AOPi and ATO would like to make the December Dash an annual event at GVSU.

“That’s how events get bigger – when people know it’s going to happen every year,” she said. “We have a catchy (name), December Dash, and I think if we continue to build on it, it will be successful.”

Cody Jones, a GVSU senior, had the fastest time with 16 minutes and 22 seconds. Jones has run since high school and competes in marathons.

He said he likes to run in events like the Dash between marathons, but this was his first winter 5K.

“It was a little cold, and I was worried about that,” he said. “But I ran (the day before), so I’m used to it. It’s the defrosting that’s the bad part. I liked running in the cold better than the heat, so it wasn’t bad.”

His first place prize was a bag of coffee, which he plans to give as a gift.

Jones said the event organizers did a good job marking corners for the runners, but he thought they could have had a few more along the way to make sure runners were going in the right direction.

“It was some points were I was like, ‘I don’t know if I’m going the right way.’ At one point I happened to turn and saw some of the AOP sisters, so I knew I was going the right way,” Jones said.

Even though only 27 runners out of the 40 that registered showed up, Hartwig said she was pleased with the outcome.

“It was able to reach out into the community, which I think is great,” she said.

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