With Northland hospitals filling back up with COVID-19 patients and the delta variant running amok across the region, officials at Courage Kenny Rehabilitation Institute Northland have decided to cancel their annual Shoot For Fun event this year to avoid drawing a large crowd together.
The event, the largest fundraiser for Courage Kenny Northland programming, was held virtually last year and was set to be in person Sept. 11 this year at Old Vermilion Trail shooting range just north of Duluth. But organizers said the rapid spread of COVID-19 in recent weeks made the event unsafe to hold.
“As Courage Kenny Northland is a part of the health care community, it wouldn’t be right for us to pull together 650 folks for an in-person event,” said Eric Larson, program supervisor for the Duluth-based group. “Very difficult to guarantee that this wouldn’t become a superspreader” event.
Larson said the good news is that some of the corporate sponsors of the event are going ahead with their donations even with the event canceled.
The event, held for 23 years, draws hundreds of shooters and raises thousands of dollars for Courage Kenny Northland adaptive sports and recreation programs that provide competitive and leisure physical activities, many of them outdoors, to keep individuals with disabilities and their families healthy and active.
