Due to the current COVID-19 health crisis facing our society, Herbie’s Hometown Loop 2021 is virtual!

This year would have marked the 14^th Annual Herbie’s Hometown Loop in Bellefonte, a 4-mile community run/walk and 10-mile run held in honor of Jeremy Herbstritt, a 1998 Bellefonte Area High School graduate and 2003 and 2005 Penn State alumnus who died in the April 16, 2007 mass shootings at Virginia Tech. Jeremy had been a graduate engineering student at the time of his death.

Proceeds raised over the past 14 years were donated to the Bellefonte Area School District two years ago to help build a track for the Bellefonte Area High School (for more information visit: https://www.basd.net/Page/14140). The track is now complete. We planned to modify the race route this year so that runners would finish on the track in celebration of completing this project.

Unfortunately, due to the current COVID19 health crisis, for the health and safety of everyone, we have decided to go virtual with this year’s event. Out of respect for our community and the hard times everyone is facing, we will not be asking for or collecting any registration fee/donation this year. If you are able to give, consider donating to Centre Volunteers in Medicine at this link: Herbie’s Hometown Loop. 

We simply want to thank you for all you have done for our community, for The Jeremy Herbstritt Foundation, and our family throughout the years. We are so grateful to the Bellefonte and State College communities.

If you are able to, please get out and run or walk 4 or 10 miles in memory of Jeremy and all victims of gun violence between Saturday, August 14, 2021 and Saturday, August 21, 2021. Submit your times to our race director at kgasper@basd.net.

Please know all of you are in our thoughts and prayers. If there is anything we can do as an organization to help you or our larger community please do not hesitate to reach out to us. Like everyone else, we just want to help during these difficult times.

We look forward to seeing you all next year and pray that by then our world will be a much better place than it is right now.

…

History of Herbie’s Hometown Loop

Following Jeremy’s death on April 16, 2007 there was an outpouring of love and support from the Bellefonte and State College communities for Jeremy and his family. By the summer of 2007 Jeremy’s family was anxiously looking for a way to give something back to their community as a thank you of sorts. They knew that whatever they did would seem small in comparison to what the community had done for them, but they were determined to try and come up with something substantial. As well, they desperately wanted to do something for Jeremy, not just to remember him, but to give him his day, a day he’d never have, as he’d lost out on so much through his untimely death (gradations and a wedding, children, birthday party milestones, all of that stuff that’s so easy for us to overlook in our everyday lives and take for granted). And so, was created Herbie’s Home Town Loop.

Initially, HHL was just a 4-mile run. The route follows a path Jeremy and his siblings used to run together often. Jeremy was always naming his runs silly things, and this run naturally picked up the tag line “Town Loop” (as it loops the town of Bellefonte). From Day 1, Jeremy’s High School Cross Country and Track teammates and coaches called him Herbie. His hometown was Bellefonte, and so, we fittingly named the event Herbie’s Home “Town Loop”.

Jeremy enjoyed running races, local 5K’s and 10K’s, all the food thereafter, race t-shirts, beer at the finish line, the whole to-do! We like to think he would have appreciated HHL.  So we ask you to run with us, to enjoy the day, to remember Jeremy and his vibrant spirit, and to support our community. Thank you!