Bitterroot, Montana man, Matt Guzik to top $1 million fundraising mark with Kilimanjaro ascent. The Greater Ravalli Foundation

When he started running in his early 30s, Guzik was feeling a little out of shape, a little soft around the middle. Sure enough, running solved that. Then he got a little obsessive about the sport, started running marathons and eventually became a triathlete.

Then his running led him to another obsession, which combined the healthy benefits of running with the healthy benefit of doing something good for his community, which by that time had become the Bitterroot Valley.

What the 47-year-old Guzik did was link his passion for marathons with raising money for charity. His job as general manager of the Stock Farm Club http://www.stockfarm.com/ outside of Hamilton put him in the perfect position to raise money, and Guzik has, over the past several years, tapped the spring of goodwill and big money that rises from the club’s wealthy members.

“I’m in a good place for somebody who wants to raise money for charity,” Guzik said this week during an interview at the expansive Stock Farm clubhouse. “The members here have been incredibly generous, but so have people around the valley. I think they are always willing to give to a good cause.”

Back in 2000, not long after he took the job at the Stock Farm, Guzik came up with the idea of running 12 marathons in 12 months. He thought he could raise $1,000 a race for charity, but set his sights higher after receiving some heavy cash from stock brokerage maven Charles Schwab http://www.schwab.com and Jim Schueler of Rocky Mountain Log Homes http://www.rmlh.com .

“That series of runs raised $36,000, and it really taught me the power of charity to get good work done,” Guzik said.

In short order, the Greater Ravalli Foundation http://www.tgrf.org/ was formed from Stock Farm roots with the idea of helping the Bitterroot’s school system and students. To raise more money, Guzik competed in the 2003 Ironman competition in Hawaii. He raised an astonishing $286,000 for the foundation, taking in donations that ranged from $10 to $50,000.

By MICHAEL MOORE of the Missoulian

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/articles/2007/01/27/news/mtregional/news06.txt

The Greater Ravalli Foundation provides Education Infrastructure, Scholarships, Sustenance and Capital Improvement to ensure that every student has what they need to grow. http://www.tgrf.org/