Local paper article: She's Running for Sandy Hook Promise
Gun control advocate will compete in New York City Marathon in November
By Tyler Shaun Evains
Originally published in The Beach Reporter on Thursday, August 31, 2023
Kaitlyn McQuown hated running when she was growing up.
She didn't excel at cross country when she joined in 6th grade, she said. She dreaded the meets and practices.
But the Manhattan Beach resident has since reframed what running means to her, falling in love with the activity for a reason bigger than herself.
At first, running was a way to care for her own mental health after she graduated from college and tried to find her way in the world. "I had severe anxiety," McQuown said. "And started running to offset that and take the edge off a bit."
She was working at a nonprofit, The Painted Turtle, at the time, which allowed her to run her first half marathon for charity. That began to make the tedious part worth it for McQuown.
Now she's making it mean even more. McQuown is about two months into training for the New York City Marathon in November. She's fundraising for Sandy Hook Promise to raise awareness of gun violence and urge policies that champion gun control.
The cause hits close to home.
It was Memorial Day weekend 2014, her freshman year of college. McQuown was home from UC Santa Barbara. One of her roommates was a member of the sorority whose house a gunman targeted on May 23 that year before turning the gun on himself.
McQuown's roommate, fortunately, wasn't there when shots rang out during what became known as the Isla Vista Killings. But six of their peers' lives were cut short that day.
And, because she and her roommate survived, McQuown has since lived more intentionally in honor of those students: Veronika Elizabeth Weiss, who was in her grade and lived one building over from her; George Chen; Chengyuan "James" Hong; Weihan "David" Wang; Katherine Breann Cooper; and Christopher Ross Michaels-Martinez.
"If one thing would've changed, it would've gone down really differently," McQuown said, nine years after the tragic incident. McQuown didn't know the victims personally, but after seeing photos of them, she said "it feels like they were the type of people I could see myself being friends with."
Photo by Chuck Bennett
So she's honoring the six the best way she knows how — advocating for what happened to them to stop happening to others. "After the shooting, it became very obvious to me that the community (at UCSB) was so special," McQuown said. "It felt like people really took care of each other after that; everyone had a sense of comradery."
Running the New York Marathon is a bucket list item that McQuown's happy to cross off, she said. She thought she'd never do anything like this again. "The farthest I could run is a half marathon, but I signed up to do" double that, she said. But her running goal posts have been shifting to times and distances beyond what she once thought she could accomplish. She now envisions herself seeing more of the world through marathon running, she said.
"I didn't gel with being in competition with other people on my team," McQuown said. "But now that I'm an adult choosing to do this by myself, it's not something imposed upon me, it's become a me versus me thing. The only one I have to beat is past versions of myself."
She channeled her energy, frustration and grief over gun violence into making change so fewer people will have to feel what she did. "I felt I could put that somewhere where it could do something instead of being upset, watching the news over and over," McQuown said.
Then, it all aligned. McQuown was one of the 30 out of more than 100 applicants who got spots on the Sandy Hook team. "It worked out perfectly," she said. "I really wanted to run this marathon."
Her goal was to spread awareness not just about gun control, she said, but prevention methods, which Sandy Hook Promise focuses on. The organization, for example, has programs teaching students K-12 how to spot warning signs and to empower them to speak up when they see something suspicious, potentially stopping gun violence before it actually happens.
"A shooting will happen, people will rally around it, then there will be some legislation," McQuown said. "But the preventative work is needed."
The shooting at UCSB impacted the way McQuown votes for policies and elected officials, she said, and how she interacts with people daily. And she said, she seems to be talking about gun control all the time. "This is constantly in the news; every time a shooting happens, it brings back the memories that impacted me," McQuown said. It seems like it's not getting any better, (but) continuing to get worse."
California already has pretty strict gun regulations, she added, but unncessary violence can still happen. For example, she said, the Isla Vista shooter underwent numerous interventions, including mental health care, but he was still able to legally buy a gun.
But her efforts leading up to, on and beyond Nov. 5 will hopefully eradicate that from the future.
Donate to McQuown's NYC Marathon Sandy Hook Promise fundraiser here.