Twenty years after a survivor of ethnic violence in Burundi decided to turn his adopted hometown's love of running into a lifeline for his birth country, Run For The Water returns to Austin streets this Sunday, November 8, with a 5K, 10-Miler and Kids' Run all starting from downtown. The race, which marks its 20th anniversary this year, raises proceeds for clean water projects in Burundi and expects thousands of participants to join in.
The milestone traces back to Gilbert Tuhabonye, an Olympic torchbearer and founder of the Gazelle Foundation, who survived a 1993 period of ethnic killings in Burundi in which the Hutu majority persecuted Tutsis. Tuhabonye was trapped in his burning high school for at least eight hours during the violence, according to The Austin Chronicle, and he spent three months recovering emotionally and physically afterward. He later received a full scholarship to Tulane University and served as the first Burundian torchbearer at the 1996 Atlanta Games before arriving in Austin in 2001, where he now coaches under Gilbert's Gazelles.
Tuhabonye co-founded the Gazelle Foundation in 2006, the same year he and the race's organizers began staging the run that would fund it. The foundation builds clean water systems accessible to Burundian villages, and according to the Gazelle Foundation, this year marks a milestone worth celebrating: 20 years of Run For The Water. The foundation says its water systems can reduce the average walk to water from four miles to as little as 400 meters, easing a burden that falls heavily on rural families.
A Shortage Rooted In Drought And Contamination
Burundi faces a drinking water shortage driven by rising temperatures and drought, and rural water sources are often contaminated, per the Chronicle's reporting. The Gazelle Foundation says its clean water systems also provide local jobs and can stimulate local economies in the villages where they're built, work the foundation describes as being carried out by people who donate their time and talents.
The scale of the broader challenge is significant. A 2025 World Bank project document proposed a 95 million dollar water and sanitation initiative for Burundi, aiming to provide basic water supply to 650,000 people in selected urban and rural areas. That same document noted that, as of 2022, only 62 percent of Burundi's population had basic water supply, including just 48 percent of the rural population — though UNICEF Burundi has since reported that roughly 66 percent of the population had basic access to drinking water based on 2025 WHO and UNICEF data, with the two figures reflecting different years and measures. The World Bank document also estimated that more than 800,000 people per year would need to gain basic water access for the country to meet its 2030 universal-access goal.
Tuhabonye has credited Austin's running community with keeping the mission alive. He has thanked west Austin residents for allowing the race to use their neighborhood year after year, and has called the Austin community's support central to the foundation's work, according to the Chronicle. He called the 20-year milestone remarkable and said Austin's donors and contributors are the real angels behind the effort.
Race Weekend Details For Austin Runners
This year's 5K and 10-Mile races both start at 7 a.m. Sunday, with the Kids' Run starting at 9:15 a.m., per the Chronicle. Registered runners can collect race packets Friday or Saturday at Karavel Shoes on Anderson Lane, which Run For The Water lists as its official packet pickup location for the 2026 race.
The weekend kicks off with a Shake Out Run, a 3-mile pre-race event Saturday that includes vendors, coffee, snacks and a Tiny Truck DJ set, according to the Chronicle's account. The event's own listing specifies the Shake Out Run begins at 8 a.m. at Karavel Shoes and is open to registered race participants, with family members and friends welcome to join them too. Organizers say the morning will also include food, partner demos, giveaways and cheer-sign making.
Austin Fit Magazine has described the 10-mile course as a trek that takes thousands of runners from Central Texas through downtown, around Lady Bird Lake, and into Tarrytown, looping past the overlooks on Scenic Drive before heading back downtown. The outlet also reported that the Gazelle Foundation was officially incorporated in fall 2006, with Tuhabonye, DK Reynolds and Peter Rauch serving as founding board members — a account that aligns with the foundation's own history of Tuhabonye and Rauch taking on production of the race that year.
Looking Beyond The Finish Line
The foundation's published impact figures vary by page: one 2025 Gazelle Foundation blog post reported 76 water systems serving 144,560 people in rural Burundi, while the foundation's impact page separately reports more than 152,560 people provided with clean water across 78 completed projects. Run For The Water says it is expanding community outreach, training opportunities and storytelling efforts to welcome more runners in the years ahead.
Separately, UNICEF Burundi reported that in 2025 nearly 98,000 people gained sustainable access to basic drinking water through newly built climate-resilient water systems in the country. For Austin runners lacing up Sunday, the race remains what it has been for two decades: a local 5K, 10-Miler and Kids' Run built around a survivor's promise that Austin's generosity could change daily life a continent away.
