To raise funds for Gawad Kalinga: Fil-Am runs barefoot in Antarctica Edgar Allan Vilbar

CEBU, Philippines - A 53-year-old Filipino-American resident of North Carolina, who hails from Leyte, is running barefoot in Antarctica to help raise funds for Gawad Kalinga (GK).

Eddie Vilbar Vega, a member of GK-USA’s Heroes Run team in North Carolina, will be the first man to run a full marathon barefoot in Antarctica, seeking a Guinness World Record.

The first official marathon in Antarctica was held on January 28, 1995 and since then there have been one or two full and half marathons per year. The 2013 White Continent Marathon was held on February 25 at King George Island of Antarctica.

Vega started running full marathons five years ago, starting with the GK-USA’s Heroes Run Team for the City of Oaks Marathon in Raleigh, North Carolina in 2007.

The high from finishing 26.2 miles (42 km) marathon was not enough for Vega, who was bitten by the marathon bug and has not stopped running since then.

As of February 16, this year, Vega has logged 66 full marathons and eight ultra-marathons (distance of 50K or more). Of these, 66 were ran by using Vibrams, those thin “near-barefoot shoes” with five toes.

He has ran barefoot in only three marathons, but has set the goal of being the first person to run a full marathon barefoot in all 50 US states.

A volunteer and advocate of GK, Vega will continue running to help raise awareness and support the GK movement. “I think it is fitting that I dedicate this run to GK, as my first marathon was for GK,” he said.

GK is a Philippine-based nation-building movement which main strategy is to mobilize and engage all sectors of society to work together in ending poverty. It offers solution to the problem of poverty via a community development template with values-formation at its core, using an integrated and holistic approach to empowerment with special focus on restoring the dignity and productivity of the poor.

GK has built over 100,000 houses in over 2,000 communities in the Philippines and Southeast Asia. In the US, it is officially represented by GK-USA, a non-profit organization registered in California (www.gk-usa.org).

Established in more than 20 areas in the US, the GK-USA promotes wide-range collaborations and partnerships to strengthen the Filipino diasporas in that country and envision a world where the spirit of bayanihan lives and binds people together.  (FREEMAN)