Retro Look At RFH’s KDM Fun Runners — Rumson-Fair Haven Retrospect

Keith McHeffey and RFH friends
Photo/Gregg Kennedy

This was the year without a KDM Fun Run.

The run has become a tradition in the Rumson-Fair Haven area — The KDM Fun Run honoring RFH grad Keith McHeffey, an avid athlete and friend to many, who was a victim of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City on 9/11.

The run is sponsored by the KDM Foundation, created shortly after 9/11 by McHeffey’s RFH friends, six of whom serve on the Foundation board.

“Keith was a kind and giving person that will never be forgotten by his family or friends,” the Foundation’s mission statement says. “He spent his life giving of himself to others. Now, we are giving back to the community in his good name. His life was a testament on ‘how to live.'”

The KDM Foundation’s popular annual run draws a lot of sponsored runners, the funds of which benefit its mission. So far, a 9/11 Memorial Field has been created at Piping Rock Park in Rumson, a playground completed at Fair Haven Fields, a digital scoreboard donated to Sickles School in Fair Haven. More than 40 scholarships have been awarded in McHeffey’s name through 2019; and youth activities have been bolstered in the area.

The run usually takes over Ocean Avenue on the Saturday before St. Patrick’s Day every year. Not this year. COVID-19 had other plans for a gathering that size.

So, we offer a glimpse back to the RFH friends who kept their bond unbreakable from childhood on and continue to honor the one who is now gone by continuing his legacy of camaraderie, sportsmanship and community ties.

The KDM Fun Run has been dubbed the annual living memorial tribute to Keith in a setting truest to his nature.

These Retro Pic(s) of the Day, offered by board member and McHeffey bud Gregg Kennedy, take a look back at McHeffey in his RFH heyday hanging out with his best friends.

Here’s to running with it next year!