Quidditch in the Community: TTQ Keeps Community Engagement Alive

By Talitha Brys

While doing community outreach at their local Barnes & Noble, representatives from Time Turners Quidditch (TTQ) became acquainted with Darren and Margie Fink, who are the current heads of Transfiguring Adoption.

Transfiguring Adoption is a nonprofit program that works to provide foster/adoptive parents and children with resources to help them cope with difficult situations and events. What makes Transfiguring Adoption stand out is how it achieves this: Harry Potter. Taking the Harry Potter series chapter by chapter, the organization has created discussion guides for parents and children to utilize as they read through the books.

Transfiguring Adoption has now placed a challenge before its donors: the Owl-iday Virtual 5K. A virtual 5K is a just like a normal 5K, but it is meant to be done on one’s own time. There is no set time and place one is intended to complete the race. It does not even need to be completed in one session. As long as one runs 3.1 miles by Nov. 26, the challenge will be considered successfully completed. All participants will receive a medal for the completion of the 5K.

Owl-iday 5K Challenge Medals | Photo Credit: Transfiguring Adoption

A specific challenge has been put in place for the quidditch community. The team that registers the most people for this run will receive $50 worth of books to donate to the foster/adoptive agency of their choice and a to-be-announced trophy — not to mention bragging rights. After a team representative has registered their team, anyone who visits the main registration page will be able to select that team from a drop-down menu.

This 5K is about more than just fame and glory, though. Foster children live through tough and unique experiences that can alter their behaviors and perception of people and circumstances. Many foster and adoptive parents are not equipped with the knowledge of how to help these children manage their trauma. The funds received from the registration of this run will go toward Transfiguring Adoption’s First Foster Placement Survival Kit program. This program provides a package of tools to newly licensed foster parents so they can make new placements as healing and successful as possible.

Registration costs $28 and ends on Nov. 15; TTQ encourages you to set down your brooms and lace up your running shoes for a good cause.