The color just kept coming Saturday.

It was tossed, thrown, shot and strewn. It landed on Live United T-shirts, several street corners — and my face. But all is fair during a color run. No hard feelings.

I came out of the experience looking like a human kaleidoscope.

If it hadn’t been for a pair of sunglasses, I would have been seeing blue for days. Many, many people got a kick out of the sunglasses outline clearly marked on my face. Walking back to my car, quite a few said I looked like I had a fun time in a color war. It’s true. I did have fun.

Yes, one of my ears is still tinted blue, but I’m hoping it doesn’t take too much longer to fade.

Besides getting my workout in for the weekend, the United Way of West Central Mississippi’s True Color Run gave me the opportunity to quite literally run beside the community I cover.

And what a community event it was.

From the volunteers manning every street crossing, telling me where to turn and cheering me on, to the event organizers working tirelessly to make the event go off without a hitch, the event drew a crowd from across Vicksburg. People ran, walked and danced across the finish line.

The smiles, the tutus and the color clouds trailing behind participants all point to what this community offers.

The color run kicked off this year’s fundraising campaign for the United Way. The proceeds for the event go toward the United Way and its 20 partner agencies, including the Salvation Army, Good Shepard Community Center and many, many other deserving causes.

Community members coming together to help fund an agency that provides such needed services to fellow community members is what I saw when I was running the course through downtown, thankful it was cloudy because I don’t think I could have made it if it weren’t.

I guess technically I saw people running for a cause and a ton of color flying through the air.

People loved those color packets. If you happened to travel downtown after the event Saturday, the streets on the route proved it.

I overheard one woman saying she and her children were going to have to wear long sleeves to church tomorrow. That’s how much color was thrown.

For all the color hurled at me, my T-shirt actually looked pretty at the end, which I guess is kind of like the run itself.

People ran to have fun, threw color and helped their community. They hurled color to fund a beautiful partnership.

It was well worth the sunglasses outline on my face.

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Sarah Mahan is a staff writer for The Vicksburg Post. You may reach her at sarah.mahan@vicksburgpost.com. Readers are invited to submit their opinions for publication.