Dave Ballard got the idea of a wacky charity race while watching a YouTube video of someone slip-sliding through a slough of foam. The first 5K Foam Fest was held in the fall of 2011 in Idaho.
A year and more than a dozen events later, Ballard says his group has raised more than $10,000 for charity, with most of those funds being donated to Shared Hope International, an organization that combats human trafficking.
"We've been compared to the TV show Wipeout," Ballard says. "And we've been called a carnival for fitness." The next race will be in Sacramento.
Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.
