School Walk-A-Thon

Yesterday, in attempts to raise money for our school, we held what we believe will be our first annual Walk-a-Thon.

In recent years, our school has done Walk-a-Thons for such disasters as Hurricane Katrina victims, where as a school we raised $24,000. And last year, we did a Walk-A-Thon for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti and raised almost $12,000.

This year, our Walk-a-Thon will be benefiting the victims of recent State budget cuts to education. This year, the money raised from the Walk-a-Thon will benefit our school directly and the 700+ kids we have in attendance.

In years past, we’ve done catalog fundraisers, and candy sales. Both in which over half of the money brought in, is paid back to the company that organizes the event. But this year, because of the State of Emergency in our school, we need every cent to stay at our school. So our Ways and Means Coordinator came up with the idea for this Walk-A-Thon.

Wednesdays are our usual minimum day, so the event was held after school from 1:00-2:00. Our principal arranged for late buses to be available to the students who stayed and participated. On Tuesday afternoon, we had permission slips signed for over half of our students to participate, with another 100 or more permission slips being turned in yesterday morning as well as right up to the start of the Walk-A-Thon.

Each grade level had a booth of some sort. The money brought in from those individual booths stayed with that grade level and they'll use the money to help off set the cost for upcoming field trips, etc. We had booths that sold nachos, cotton candy and popcorn, water bottles and flavored water packets, sno cones, juice boxes, Krispy Kreme donuts, Silly Bandz Bracelets, collecting the recycling, as well as a booth that allowed you to toss wet sponges at the teachers face that was sticking out the cut out. At the conclusion of the Walk-A-Thon, our principal stepped in and let the kids cool him off. A good majority of the teachers dawned their tennis shoes and walked right along side their classes. Our principal did the same! He'd changed from his dress pants and long shirt and tie into comfortable walking clothes and he walked right along side his students, making several laps on each of our three roped off walking tracks. I was so impressed by this, our principal is awesome and really cares about the kids at his school and is always so appreciative of the parent volunteers and the PTA and he expresses it. The kids loved seeing him out there walking as well. It was a VERY LONG day yesterday and I came home worn out, exhausted, and with a headache. I arrived to the school about 7:20am and worked until after 3:00. We spent the day preparing by cutting ribbon for balloons, last minuted registrations, setting up the three different areas, the booths, blowing up balloons, making three balloon arches, and tons of other little detailed things that made the event a success! This picture is just some of us who'd put hours into the day.And now we wait...for all the money and pledges to be brought in and accounted for, to determine just how successful our fundraiser was. Here's hoping we don't have to do any little fundraisers in the remaining school year...