Team Tusc members raised $1,590 for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital by competing in the Warrior Dash obstacle course event July 20th at Clay's Park. Pictured from left to right are Captain Paul Rossi and Officer Tessa Pahovey of the New Philadelphia Police Department, Sgt. Cheri Creager of the Tuscarawas County Sheriff's Office, and Dover Police Patrolman Sean Leffler. (Submitted photo)

NEW PHILADELPHIA (Tusco TV) - A New Philadelphia Police captain is looking back on a unique fundraising experience that left him and several other local law enforcement officers covered in mud. 

Paul Rossi was part of a six-member team that raised just under $1,600 for the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital by competing in the 10th-annual Warrior Dash July 20th at Clay’s Park Resort. He says it was a fun but intense challenge, and it was all for a great cause.

“It’s a 5K obstacle course. You run through the woods and on the trails. It was all for the benefit of St. Jude children’s hospital. Their philosophy is when children are in need, they can go to their hospital facility and parents never have to pay for the accommodations,” he says.

Rossi’s Warrior Dash teammates included New Philadelphia Police Officer Tessa Pahovey, Dover Patrolman Sean Leffler, and Tuscarawas County Jail Sgt. Cheri Creager, along with representatives from Cleveland Clinic Union Hospital and Community Mental Healthcare. Rossi says the team took on a variety of obstacles that had them climbing ropes and crawling through the mud. 

“It’s a good thing none of us were scared of heights because there was one where you had to climb up a rope ladder, probably one and a half stories high and then climb back down the other side of this wall,” he says. “Another one is you crawl through a ditch full of mud with a roof canopy over it so if you’re claustrophobic, that might have been bad, too. Another one is you crawl through a ditch full of mud with a roof canopy over it so if you’re claustrophobic, that might have been bad, too.”

Rossi says he and his teammates had so much fun competing in the event that they’re planning to do it again next year and hopefully raise even more for the cause.

TUSCO TV