Ruck & Rise Join the list
Three service members and a K9 walking toward the sunrise under the American flag, with the Ruck & Rise wordmark and the words stronger together for a brighter tomorrow
2027 · Details coming soon

Carry the weight together

Ruck & Rise is becoming a 5K: a morning ruck, run and walk raising money and awareness for veteran mental health. We are working with the city now on 2027. Get on the list and be first to know.

Join the mailing list See last year
Next event
2027
Format
5K ruck, run & walk
Benefiting
Operation 22
Why we ruck

Weight is easier shared

Rucking is simple: put weight on your back and walk. It is also a fair picture of what a lot of veterans and first responders carry every day, quietly and usually alone.

Operation 22 takes its name from the figure most often quoted for how many veterans die by suicide every day: twenty two. It is a number people have heard so often that it has stopped landing. A start line full of neighbours is harder to ignore.

Ruck & Rise exists to put that weight down in company. Every dollar raised supports Operation 22 and the mental health care they help veterans reach: counselling, peer support, and a way in for people who would never call a hotline.

  • Show up. A morning together beats a fundraising letter.
  • Buy local, buy veteran. Our expo is built around veteran and first-responder owned businesses.
  • Make help easy to find. Nonprofits and local providers meet people face to face, on a normal Saturday.
Operation 22
Who it benefits

Operation 22

Operation 22 was started in 2022 by Stephen Swarner, a Navy veteran, to do something about veteran suicide. Their approach is deliberately ordinary: get veterans back out together golfing, hiking, fishing and hunting, and let the camaraderie and accountability that came with service do work that a phone number cannot.

Alongside that sits peer support and a flat refusal to treat suicide as a subject that cannot be raised out loud. The work runs on donations, and in 2025 the Homes for Heroes Foundation backed it with a grant.

"We spend 100% of the money on the Veterans."

Stephen Swarner, founder and executive director

Visit Operation 22

What comes next

The 2027 5K

The expo is growing into a 5K: ruck it with weight, run it, or walk it with the family. Same start line, same finish. The expo stays, alongside the course.

  • Happening now

    City Permit Application

    We are working through the special event application with the city. Route and date follow from that.

  • Next

    Date and Course Confirmed

    The mailing list hears first, before any public announcement.

  • Then

    Sponsors and Vendors Open

    Last year we ran a waitlist. Tell us now and you will be near the front of it.

  • 2027

    Registration Opens

    Individual, team and family entries, plus a virtual option for anyone out of the area.

Nothing is set yet

The date, the route and the entry fees all wait on the city signing off the permit. We would rather tell you nothing than tell you something we have to take back.

The mailing list is how you will hear, and it will hear before anything goes public.

Get the date first

The 2025 expo

How it started

Our first Ruck & Rise was an expo of veteran and first-responder owned businesses plus a ruck march, with the Mayor on the programme, nonprofits and providers on site, and more vendors wanting in than we had room for.

33
Vendors exhibiting
250+
People through the door
8
Nonprofits on site
Full
Vendor waitlist
Get involved

Four ways in

Take part

Ruck, run or walk the course in 2027: on your own, with a team, or pushing a stroller.

Tell me when it opens

Sponsor

Put your name on the start line and in front of a crowd that shops local and shops veteran.

Ask about sponsorship

Exhibit

Veteran and first-responder owned businesses get first call on expo booths. Spaces are limited.

Join the vendor list

Volunteer

Water stations, packet pickup, course marshals, teardown. A few hours makes the whole thing work.

Put my hand up