This summer, during the annual Student and Youth Travel Association (SYTA) conference held in Orlando, Florida, from August 18-23, Erica Radler, a sophomore, was presented with the SYTA Visionary Award for her charity work, namely organizing the annual Alps Village Color Run 5k, the third of which will be held next year.

The SYTA Youth Foundation is a non-profit whose stated mission, “is to impact students and youth through travel experiences that change their lives.” The idea for a color run first came to Radler in 2015, while she was an 8th grader at Anthony Wayne Middle School, and wanted to provide much needed school supplies for Martin Luther King Jr Elementary School in Paterson. Radler  took care of all the logistics necessary to make the race a reality, such as the route that it would take, the permits needed, etc.

“Everyone who took part in the first color run donated school supplies, which, with the help of the SYTA Youth Foundation, were successfully donated to MLK elementary,” said Radler.  

The following year, Radler held a second color run, this time collecting monetary donations for SYTA. This color run was an immense success, raising over $2000. With that money, the students of MLK Elementary were able to take a field trip to New York City, which, despite being so close by, many of them had never visited before. Among other things, the students saw The Lion King on Broadway.

In recognition of her charity work, the SYTA Youth Foundation nominated Erica for the Visionary Award.

According to their website, the Visionary Award is given annually to an individual that, “demonstrates a commitment to enriching students’ lives through travel and/or contributing to the advancement of our industry through volunteer activities, community service or education.” The nominees were numerous and included both students and adults, but were eventually narrowed down to Radler and just one other person. Members of SYF asked her to meet with them and surprised Erica by announcing her victory in person. She was then flown down to the aforementioned SYTA Conference and was provided accommodations in Orlando. At the conference,  Radler was introduced to the stage by Riley Banks-Snyder, founder of Generation Next, author of Riley Unlikely, and the winner of the 2015 SYTA Visionary award, and gave a speech in front of 1300 people.

She described the experience as follows: “It was honestly very surreal, I didn’t even really process what was happening until after I finished the speech- it was such a great feeling looking back, knowing all the effort was paying off.”

For her third color run, Radler hopes to raise even more money for SYTA. She plans to use this money to convert a currently purposeless area of Martin Luther King Jr Elementary into a gym for students with special needs.