Nomeward Bound

Nomeward Bound

A Chiditarod Fundraising and Racing Team

Hi all – 

BIG update! 

This weekend we crossed the milestone of $200,000 raised cumulatively over the years since Nomeward Bound started fundraising in 2016! That’s a substantial amount of the over ONE MILLION DOLLARS raised by the Chiditarod Foundation in the 20 years of its existence to support organizations across Chicagoland addressing food insecurity.  Thank you for your support of organizations that help our neighbors! 

That milestone happened this weekend thanks to such active participation in our live fundraising events over the last few weeks and a lot of in-kind donations of good, time, and services: 

  • Our virtual pub trivia event raised $1125 in registrations, raffles, and event donations.
  • $1420 raised across our two karaoke events in January and February 
  • We maxed out the $6,000 in employer matching donations for Nik & Alixa
  • Please extend our love and gratitude to everyone who donated time or in-kind donations for our live events

We’re done with live events for this year (and supporting events for some of our Frivals!) – but we’re not done fundraising yet;  the fundraising competition (yes, aside from being for a good cause, this is a competition) ends at 5pm on Chiditarod race day: Saturday, March 7th! We’re currently in 2nd place for team fundraising, and holding down 3 of the top 6 individual fundraisers! 

Important upcoming fundraising dates: 

  • Online Silent Auctions close Friday February 27th at 9pm Central! 
  • We’ve extended our online raffle draws to Friday, March 6 at Noon Central. 
  • Don’t forget to submit for matching if your employer matches your donations! If you receive a confirmation that your employer will match your donation and send that confirmation to [email protected], employer matches count towards the fundraising competition totals! 

Many many many thanks go out to the donors of our raffles and auction items (there’s still time for a chance to win each of these!) 

Thanks to everyone who’s donated so far, thanks to all of the organizations and individuals who made our events possible, and thanks especially to the team members of Nomeward Bound for all of their hard work putting together these events!

Who are you? What is this?
Nomeward Bound is a Chiditarod Team that has been racing since 2015.
In September 2025 Nomeward Bound was recognized as Chiditarod’s ALL TIME TOP FUNDRAISING TEAM having raised $190,000+ for the Chiditarod Foundation’s Grant Program.

Wait… what ?
Chiditarod is a 501(c)(3) raising money to fight hunger — all while dressing up and causing chaos. CHIditarod is Chicago’s 100% volunteer-driven epic urban shopping cart race, charity food drive, costumed beauty pageant, talent show, fundraiser, parade, and chaos generator.
It’s probably the world’s largest mobile food drive.
In 2026, Chiditarod is celebrating it’s 21st birthday and the more than ONE MILLION DOLLARS raised since it’s inception!

Set your calendars for CHIditarod XXI on Saturday March 7th, 2026.

Fundraising and Grant Making? A Good Cause and not just Chaos? Tell me more! In 2025, the Chiditarod Foundation gave out $121,000 in Community Grants. Another truly mind-blowing year of generosity of our donors means 21 organizations can further their reach to addressing food insecurity in northern Illinois. Fourteen program development grants were awarded at $5,000 each, and seven infrastructure grants were awarded at a maximum level of $8,000.

The Chiditarod grant program has historically prioritized funds to organizations addressing food insecurity, and specifically programming and infrastructure that provides:

  • Innovative or novel ways to address challenges to food access and availability
  • Health nutrition or creative work on some aspect of food
  • Innovative educational opportunities about food
  • Building partnerships with other organizations and policy-relevant leaders engaged in local issues

Cool, but… why are you all dressed like Gritty?
Why not?
Gritty was our team theme in 2022. None of us are from Philly, and none of us are even really hockey fans. We didn’t say it made sense.
We handmade all of the costumes, and King Gritty on top of one of our carts, and yes, in 2026 we are still finding bits of Gritty Fur in odd places.

Didn’t you win Best in Show in 2024 for dressing up as a Chicago River Architecture Tour, and yet you’re still showing off Gritty on your homepage?
Yup.
We even had a dedicated Chiditaline Tours website, and a dedicated website for 2025’s Corvidarod – but here we are. Still Gritty.

Donate to Nomeward Bound’s 2026 Fundraising Campaign!

Donate to Lauren’s Fundraiser Today!
Donate to Nik’s Fundraiser (Company match ACHIEVED)!
Donate to Alixa’s Fundraiser Today (Company match ACHIEVED)!