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In 2012, Juan Antonio-Sorto took up running to help counteract stress—he was working full-time while getting his PhD in Urban Planning and Environmental Policy from Texas Southern University. “I started running with a group of other graduate students,” he says. “It helped clear my mind.” When a friend suggested training for a marathon, he agreed, and completed the Houston Marathon in 2016. Before long he had caught the triathlon bug and eventually finished an Ironman in 2017. “That year I had also lost 40 pounds because I changed my eating habits,” he says.
After experiencing such significant personal success through running, Sorto found his priorities shifting. “I grew up in extreme poverty in El Salvador, and I have always believed in helping others, especially those who do not have the means to accomplish their goals,” he says. Through the Houston nonprofit Bee Abled (an organization that supports athletes with disabilities), Sorto began volunteering to guide adaptive athletes from training to an eventual marathon. To date, Sorto has run 23 marathons with a visually impaired friend, and in 2022 and 2023, guided him to Boston Marathon–qualifying times.
His upbringing and his passion for an active lifestyle led him to establish his own nonprofit, Friends of El Salvador, in 2023, which hosts monthly walks in San Miguel, where he grew up, to promote health and wellness in the community. This year he is organizing the town’s first-ever 5K race set to take place on Christmas morning.
For Sorto, the urge to give back first intensified in 2008 when he was visiting home for the holidays. At the time, he had just graduated from college and traveled to San Miguel to visit his grandmother. He noticed something different about the villages he once roamed in his youth: “I was asking, ‘Where are the kids? Where is the Christmas joy?’”
After visiting several homes with his grandmother, Sorto finally got his answer. A woman pointed toward sugarcane fields in the distance and told him that children from the community often worked there during the holidays to help support their families. “That was a powerful moment for me because [when I was a kid] I loved spending time with my grandmother [during the holidays],” he says.
The following Christmas Sorto went back to El Salvador with a suitcase full of donated toys. And thanks to support from family, friends, and local churches, he has returned every holiday season since to deliver warm meals and more than 5,000 toys to families in the area.
As Sorto looks forward to the Christmas 5K, he knows from his experience guiding athletes with disabilities what the simple act of running can do for others. “We want the community to feel empowered, and receiving a medal, for many, will be a form of empowerment,” he says. “In addition, we want to bring a positive image into these communities, which have been plagued with crime and gang violence.”
The cost of a race entry fee is unattainable for most in the surrounding communities, so Sorto relies on donations and sponsors so everyone can experience the joy of running. Says Sorto: “The reason I still run is because I found a sense of purpose beyond my personal accomplishments.”
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Jennifer Acker reports on a wide range of health and wellness topics for Runner’s World and Bicycling. She’s passionate about delivering journalism that enriches the lives of readers. Jennifer is a lifelong runner—with several half marathons, and a few marathons under her belt, certified yoga instructor, and having grown up in the Pocono Mountains, always has a mountain bike and pair of skis ready for the perfect fall or winter day.
