Boosterthon

Amelia and John's elementary school held their "Boosterthon" fundraiser last week. Boosterthon was a school-wide event where the kids solicited pledges from friends and family for running laps around a track (e.g., $1 per lap), where the proceeds went to benefit the school's educational programs. Our elementary school has sold products (gift wrap and other tangible items) in the past as a fall fundraiser so the Boosterthon was new this year. As a runner and a mom interested in promoting fitness for youth, I loved the concept behind the Boosterthon!

Amelia and John worked hard to gather pledges over the last two weeks. Thanks to their grandparents, Scott and I, and the Sommers family, they raised over $300 for their elementary school! The capstone for the fundraiser was the run itself, which was held on Thursday of this past week. The Boosterthon personnel (wearing the red shirts below) set up lap tracks (1/16 of a mile) on the main playgrounds of the school. Each grade was invited out for one hour to run as many laps as possible during that time period. The Boosterthon people provided music and games and challenges during the event, and so many parents came out to cheer on their runners that this ended up being a big and fun event for our community!

Below the kindergarteners are warming up before the run.

John is playing with his friend Reid before the event and not paying a bit of attention to the fun guy with the microphone...
Ready for the start!
John running hard on the course!

Later in the morning it was Amelia's turn. Amelia is in the photo below towards the back with the red headband around her face (the headband was a prize awarded to her class for logging the most pledges during a one-night challenge period).

Here you can see the documentation process. Each kid wore a Boosterthon t-shirt that had pre-printed lap markers on the back. As the kids completed a lap, they passed through the checkpoint and the dads used a Sharpie marker to cross off that lap number on the kid's back, thus keeping track of each runner individually.

The P.E. coaches signed each kids' shirt at the end of the running period to congratulate them all on a job well done! Amelia and John each ran the maximum number of laps permitted - 35! (35 laps at 1/16 of a mile each = more than 2 miles!)
Amelia was so proud of her completed shirt!

After all of the running the classes posed for photos. Below is John's class, where John is in the middle row, fourth from the left.

Amelia's class posed for serious photos first, and then progressed to silly photos. Amelia is in the bottom row, farthest to the right.What a fun day for U.P. Elementary! So proud of my kids!