Race For Education

Our biggest fundraiser for the year at New Market Elementary is our Race for Education.  The PTO runs this event and sends letters asking for support to individuals from a list provided by a child's parent.  The day of the race (really 3 races since we do them by grades - K-2, 3-4, 5-6) the students and teachers are bused to the Southmont field house and they run, run, run.  The kids have a card that gets marked at each lap and they complete as many as they can.  There is no prize for number of laps, but the kids love knowing how many they do.  Each group has an hour, although with announcements and Popsicles at the end, most groups do about 35-40 minutes. 

This year we also made it a glow run.  For every ten names that a child submitted they got a glow stick of some sort.  This was a big hit!  I emcee the event and this year we had a DJ provide music (versus a CD playing over the sound system that we have to keep running to another room to turn on/off/up/down).

Parents volunteer to assist with marking the laps, as well as just come to walk with their kids or cheer them on.  Sometimes the teacher does the lap markings too.  Mr. Chadd really pumped his class up each time they stopped to get a mark.

Every I saw Camden she was doing a mixture or running/walking/dancing to the music.  I think she said she got 18 or 19 laps in (her class had about 35 minutes of race time).  Pretty good pace!