Raising nearly $25,000 for Ruth’s House, the inaugural Our Amazing Race proved to be a successful event for the Washington nonprofit.

Similar to the hit CBS reality game show, Our Amazing Race took participants on a chase around Washington. The race started on the waterfront, and contestants went to several business and churches for clues and challenges.

Nineteen teams participated in the event, with the Noon Rotary team, made up of Steven Wood and Rod Cantrell, declared the winner. The victors didn’t want to keep their $1,000 prize so they donated it back to Ruth’s House.

“It’s a good cause and we’re not here to try and make money, but to have fun,” said Cantrell. “It’s a wonderful thing and we are glad to support them any way we can, and we had a blast.”

The team that won the $500 prize for raising the most money for Ruth’s House was Harvest Heroes, Jason and Sarah McCall.

Our Amazing Race didn’t time the race like the television show. They kept track of scores at each challenge. The maximum points awarded at each challenge were 10. Noon Rotary finished with 110 points out of a possible 115.

“It went fantastic,” said Elaine Briley, a member of the leadership committee at Ruth’s House. “The teams were talking about how great it was. I think it went fantastic considering it was the first year.”

At Grace Lutheran Church on North Market St., participants had to sew blindly with their partner giving instructions.

After the sewing challenge at Grace Lutheran Church, G.K. Pippin said, “This is exciting and pretty challenging sewing with a blind fold on. I stuck my finger a few times so I took one for the team.”

During the stop at Fitness Unlimited, after biking several miles, racers had a choice of either peddling on the stationary bike or holding a weight bar over their head for 10 minutes.

Outstanding Olives team member Julie Oliver Parker said, “It has been super fun, but I don’t know why we are biking since we’ve been biking all over Washington. It’s healthy though, and it’s absolutely been a great time.”

Briley said the teams raised $11,000 and sponsorships brought in $14,000 for the domestic violence shelter.

“We thought we were going to only raise $20,000 so we have exceeded that,” Briley said. “I can’t thank the teams and the community who worked so hard to raise this money enough.”