Annual Charity Kickathon

Some Good Training for Good Causes

Every year in late December, in the spirit of special year-end training at dojos in Japan, Silicon Valley Shotokan Karate organizes a year-end punch-and-kick-a-thon. Dojo members collect pledges for charity donations and then do thousands of punches and kicks to earn the donations. It’s a great chance to help people and get in some intense physical training during the holiday season.

The event began 16 years ago, in 2005, as a kick-a-thon (before that, we were doing punches, starting in 1998), with the goal to do 2006 repetitions of front-kick for the coming year 2006. In 2013 we added punches for the adults to raise the bar, doing 2014 reverse punches — after completing 2014 kicks. Physically it’s a lot, even for well conditioned athletes, so many dojo members begin training months in advance to build the strength and stamina they’ll need. Everyone agrees they feel great when they finish.

The kick-a-thon has also grown beyond the SVSK dojo, with other clubs around the world taking up the challenge, too. We are hoping that 2022 will be our biggest year yet. Other groups are encouraged to participate in our event or create their own.

Selected charities over the years have included groups dealing with orphans, diseases and various food banks, among others. For a full list, please see below.

list of charities benefiting from our annual kick-a-thon events:

2005 St Jude Children’s Research Hospital
2006 Children’s Hope International / Maulana School for Orphans / The Smile Train / Project Vietnam
2007 American Red Cross
2008 Second Harvest Food Bank
2009 Aid to Children Without Parents / Second Harvest Food Bank
2010 Christian Blind Mission
2011 San Francisco Food Bank
2012 Direct Relief International / United Way of Western Connecticut
2013 Leukemia & Lymphoma Society
2014 Room to Read
2015 Pediatric Cancer Foundation
2016 Child Advocates of Silicon Valley
2017 DirectRelief
2018 CrisisTextLine
2019 ChallengeDay
2020 Direct Relief
2021 Mully Childrens Family
2022 Community Services Agency

Check here for updates and announcements to see when the kick-a-thon is scheduled. We look forward to seeing you there, whether in-person or virtually!