CAPE ELIZABETH – Organizers of the 2025 TD Beach to Beacon race have named a local charity that caters to people with developmental disabilities as the recipient of proceeds from this year’s race.

Best Buddies Maine will receive a $30,000 donation from TD Bank, the race’s corporate sponsor, along with proceeds from registration fees and other fundraising related to the 2025 race.

“Best Buddies is helping build a more inclusive community for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities,” said Kate Burns, Retail Market President at TD Bank, said in a statement announcing the move last week. “We are honored to recognize their important work by naming them as our 2025 race beneficiary.”

Rebecca Williams, state director for Best Buddies, said she was excited to be connected with such a high-profile, positive organized event like the Beach to Beacon race. 

“We’re just thrilled to be partnered with an organization that takes inclusivity as seriously as Best Buddies does,” she said.

The local chapter of a national organization, Best Buddies Maine works to help people with developmental disabilities, such as autism and Down syndrome, make friends and build relationships with non-disabled people. 

“We are trying to create inclusive communities for all Mainers, so we want to make sure that individuals with disabilities or IDD also are an important part of our community and aren’t just accepted, but are included,” she said.

A social skill as basic as making friends, Williams said, is hard to do when there is a stigma associated with disabilities. Best Buddies works with people of all ages but predominantly works with children through individual chapters at local schools. 

There are 47 such chapters throughout the state, operating like extracurricular clubs with faculty advisers, often from a school’s special education department.

“It’s a very simple idea that we all do better with a friend, that sometimes for individuals with disabilities, there are barriers to make those natural, organic friendships,” Williams said.

A companion goal for the organization is to serve as an educational tool for non-disabled people, to show that friendships need not be all that different with a person with disabilities.

“We’d really like to de-stigmatize that having a friend with a disability is hard,” Williams said. “It’s just like having any other friend.” 

The local chapter has been active for the past five years and today has 1,300 participants, both disabled and non-disabled. It’s a long way from the 20-30 participants the organization had in its first year.

The TD Beach to Beacon is a popular annual road race featuring thousands of runners every year, with 2025 marking the race’s 27th running. The 10k racecourse starts on Route 77 in Cape Elizabeth, just outside the entrance to Crescent Beach State Park, and finishes at Fort Williams Park near the Portland Head Light lighthouse. This year, the race is scheduled for Aug. 2.

Every year, the race’s organizers choose a different local charity to be the recipient of the race’s proceeds. Williams said Best Buddies Maine only has four full-time staff members, with the rest of the charity’s work done by volunteers.

The money, Williams said, will likely be used to provide manpower to extend the organization’s reach into more schools, particularly in more remote parts of the state.