Walk-A-Thon

Lots of elementary schools have several fund raisers a year... selling candy bars or wrapping paper door to door... but our school has always tried to keep it to one fund raiser per year and we've tried to avoid having the kids ask everyone they know to buy something they don't need or want. Our school for many years has done a fall carnival to raise money, which has always been so much work and took 50 or more parent volunteers to staff (I can take no credit for having planned any of the carnivals, but I do know what it was to show up and take my turn at a station or two). The carnival was always a lot of fun for the kids, but it really ended up being a big candy and junk toy fest. Now I love candy with the best of them, I just hate to see it given so freely and so often to the kids at school. Last year when I was really active with our PTA I was thrilled that our yearly carnival fund raiser didn't work out because of construction on our school grounds. At the PTA conference the spring before we heard of a few schools that did a Walk-A-Thon for their fund raiser and we thought with the construction going on last year it was a good time to try a change. As the health commissioner I was glad to see the kids doing a healthy activity to earn money instead of paying for junk. The Walk-A-Thon was a great success and much less work, and this year I was thrilled to see that the current PTA brought it back!

Coleman and Olivia loved it...

Coleman was so funny... I went to cheer them on and walked a lap with each of them. About half way through Coleman asked if I maybe wanted to rest, so he could run again. Poor kid, his mom was slowing him down!

Liv had fun walking and running with her friends...

...but my favorite sight was the two of them walking together. I have loved hearing them talk about how excited they are to be at school together and to find each other at recess... I'm so glad Liv is willing to be her brother's keeper and watch out for him.

Both of them ended up walking over three miles in just an hour... pretty impressive!

**Aren't you glad we didn't hit you up for a magazine subscription, a box of candy bars, or some overpriced wrapping paper?