Finally, A Krispy Kreme Health Clinic

It's a great moment in the history of children's health and doughnuts.

Until recently, UNC Children's hospital in North Carolina ran an outpatient clinic in Raleigh called the N.C. Children’s Specialty Clinic. But is such a predictable name really befitting of a great healthcare organization and its long history of caring for children?

Luckily, that question no longer needs to be asked, because the clinic just got a sweet new name:

The Krispy Kreme Challenge today announced the renaming of UNC Children’s Raleigh-based, multispecialty outpatient clinic—formerly called the N.C. Children’s Specialty Clinic—to the Krispy Kreme Challenge Children’s Specialty Clinic.

The naming opportunity represents the Krispy Kreme Challenge’s commitment to raise a total of $2 million for UNC Children’s—nearly $1 million of which has been raised since the race’s inception as a charity event in 2006. The remaining $1 million will be raised by 2020.

“We cannot imagine a more impactful or promising way to support the community around us than by strengthening our partnership with UNC Children’s,” said Chris Cooper, executive director of logistics for the 2016 Krispy Kreme Challenge and a junior in chemical engineering and economics at N.C. State University. “Collaboration between our organizations has already changed, and will continue to change, the lives of patients and families throughout North Carolina.”

The Krispy Kreme Challenge, a student-run charity race, describes itself as a "test of physical fitness and gastrointestinal fortitude." It was started by N.C. State undergrads in 2004 and has become a big fundraiser for the UNC Children's hospital, with 8,000 participants last year.

It's still organized by students at North Carolina State University, not Krispy Kreme, although the Winston-Salem doughnut maker is one of several sponsors.

The challenge — slogan: 2400 calories, 12 doughnuts, 5 miles, 1 hour — involves a a five-mile run beginning and ending at the bell tower of the North Carolina State University campus in Raleigh. Halfway into the run, participants stop to eat a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts (thus the name of the event).

After that, the situation can deteriorate.

@tomgara there are disgusting photos out there of people patriotically vomiting near my uni's belltower

Chris Arbonies, now doing his medical residency at Virginia Commonwealth University Health Systems, came up with the idea for the event when he was an N.C. State undergrad. It was, he said at the event announcing the renaming of the clinic, "a product of his musings about what would be the worst food to eat prior to a run."

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