Somehow I volunteered myself to be on the planning committee for a race, walk and family fun day (includes a mascot race). How would you generate work place interest? I think in past years we've had maybe 10 or so employees attend. Event is in late April.

One thing I was thinking of doing was a weekly blurb in our newsletter with couch to 5k, starting right after new years.

Advertising is taken care of   The cause is the key thing. Basically, my department will have a team for this event. Funds raised by our team come back to the department. I work in a special ed school setting, the state has been less than generous with funding increases, so this is a great opportunity to fund a project that could not happen otherwise. So basically this is a little different in that it is to try to get interest from our staff. The event is not new, just this piece. In the past, we probably have had 10 staff or so participate, maybe more.

Food and prizes. My club tried to give money as the awards for the top 3 of each gender, but beyond that, we almost always have s prize raffle so anyone who is there has a chance to win something. We either have local businesses donate something, we each donate a prize (the board members) or we have a sponsorship/agreement with Asics and sometimes they'll throw us small freebies like gloves, hats, and arm warmers which we save to use as prizes. People seem to really like it.

Serve Krispy Kreme doughnuts and rent an ice cream truck to be stationed at the finish, you'll be so overbooked you'll have to cut off registration!

Don't forget the Mtn Dew with the KK donuts!

I'm not sure I understand the whole workplace structure, but could you promote a competition between teams?  Get more teams going and have a fund raising race?  Or if the funds are just from registration, the team/department with the most registrations, wins?

I work for a non profit. This event used to support 1 program. Now, each program that has a team (and meets a few requirements) gets the money they raised. In the he past, I think that has kept people away since they don't see the impact.

Have all managers run in tutu's.

We've tried to get one for the mascot race. 

Is it on a work day? At my company we can get a bunch of folks to do a fun walk at lunch or get even more to attend a meeting with food during work hours. Have either on a weekend and few would show up. The t shirt and raffle helped motivate some to do the walk.

We have periodically had a team go to the Kaiser Corporate Run/walk.

Recruiting has never been much of an issue for it. Thursday evening, people get to leave early, and the tent has food.

Trying to get people to attend a smaller, local 5K on a weekend ?

Almost impossible.