Cleveland community leader Jarrett Millsaps will serve as community chairman of 2024 Great Strides, the Cystic Fibrosis (CF) Foundation’s largest national fundraising event for those with cystic fibrosis. The 23rd annual Great Strides Walk and 21st annual 65 Roses 5K will be held Saturday, March 23, on the Lee University campus.

“The entire steering committee and I are so pleased to be working with Jarrett Millsaps on the Great Strides/65 Roses 5K this year,” said Dr. Brad Moffett, vice president for university relations. “This event brings together so many important friends of Lee to raise funds and awareness for a great cause, and no one is more positively engaged for the health of our community than Jarrett.”

Millsaps serves as CEO of Tennova Healthcare Cleveland, a 351-bed full-service facility with a history of serving the residents of the Tennessee Valley for more than seven decades. He is a Navy veteran who now focuses on healthcare leadership by strengthening hospitals’ ties to the community and improving employee engagement and medical staff relationships and partnerships – including raising the performance of his teams to the top quartile of all hospitals across the country.

Jarrett received his master’s degree in business administration, with a focus on finance, from the University of Tennessee Knoxville and his Bachelor of Science from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland. He is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives and is married with two children.

“Partnering with Lee University to bring much needed awareness to the work being done by the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is a privilege,” said Millsaps. “For more than two decades the Great Strides event has brought our community together around this effort, and I am grateful to be a part of it.”

Serving with Millsaps to lead the effort are Lee administrators Moffett and Vanessa Hammond, who directs the school’s office of grants and is a CF parent. The 65 Roses 5K road race will be directed by Dr. Bill Estes, dean of the Helen DeVos College of Education at Lee.

The Great Strides event will mobilize hundreds of community participants and Lee University students to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Cleveland Great Strides has reached over $1.3 million raised for CF research since the event’s local founding in 2001. Median life expectancy for those with cystic fibrosis has increased to 56, nearly 20 years longer than a decade ago.

The route for the 2024 walk and 5K run (3.1 miles) will begin in front of Lee’s Humanities Center, travel throughout Cleveland’s historic downtown area, and end in front of Lee’s Paul Conn Student Union. The walk/race will begin at 9 a.m., and a 1K Fun Run (0.6 miles) will take place at 9:30 a.m. and will start in front of the Paul Conn Student Union.

“The CF Foundation is deeply grateful for the support of Lee University and the entire Cleveland/Bradley County community for coming out and supporting Great Strides and the 65 Roses 5K,” said Jolly Johnson, senior development director for the CF Foundation, Tennessee chapter. “Their generosity will build on our work, alongside the CF community, that has helped add decades of life for people with CF. We are focused on supporting people with CF no matter where they are on their journey and pursuing a cure for all people with the disease.”

Great Strides, the CF Foundation’s largest national fundraising event with nearly 300 walks across the country, offers hope to those with cystic fibrosis. Between the Great Strides Walk and the 65 Roses 5K in Cleveland, over 1,000 community members come together to walk or run and take great strides toward making CF stand for “Cure Found.”

Chick-fil-A has once again signed on as lead sponsor for this year’s event. For sponsorship opportunities or to form a corporate walk team, contact Hammond at [email protected].

For more information about the CF Foundation, visit cff.org/.

For more information about the race or to register, visit leeu.edu/cf/.