Shelter for Elders

Local philanthropist Delores Barr Weaver has offered a multi-year challenge grant to encourage donations to the Nov. 17-18 Freed to Run Challenge, the proceeds of which will benefit Jacksonville Area Legal Aid’s Shelter for Elders endowment to fund legal aid for area seniors facing housing instability. The Delores Barr Weaver Legacy Fund will match $25,000 in donations to the 2023 Freed to Run Challenge, provided the event raises at least $75,000 from other donors. In addition, over the following two years, the fund will match a gift of up to $25,000 from a single donor each year, dollar-for-dollar, provided that at least $50,000 can be raised from additional donors. The challenge grant is designed to help the Freed to Run Challenge meet its $100,000 fundraising goal each year. Weaver, former co-majority owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars, has a history of raising funds through running that goes back to 1990, when she offered a dollar-for-dollar matching challenge grant of up to $50,000 to a group of runners who would compete in the Boston Marathon. All the funds raised would go to the Claudia Adams Barr Program in Innovative Basic Cancer Research, which Weaver had established in 1987 at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in memory of her mother, Claudie Adams Barr, who died of breast cancer.