Annual walk-a-thon theme makes fundraiser and physical fitness
fun for elementary school students
On a hot September morning, Cerra Vista Elementary School
students went to boot camp as part of the school’s eighth annual
walk-a-thon.
The yearly event takes place near the beginning of the school
year and is one of the biggest fundraisers of the year. Past
walk-a-thons have earned as much as $20,000 for the parent-teacher
organization.
Annual walk-a-thon theme makes fundraiser and physical fitness fun for elementary school students
On a hot September morning, Cerra Vista Elementary School students went to boot camp as part of the school’s eighth annual walk-a-thon.
The yearly event takes place near the beginning of the school year and is one of the biggest fundraisers of the year. Past walk-a-thons have earned as much as $20,000 for the parent-teacher organization.
“It’s a wonderful, fun activity and fundraiser that gets the kids involved in physical activity,” said Cerra Vista Principal Pam Little. “They need to keep moving to keep their body and minds functioning well.”
The event is driven by parent volunteers, including Denice Melching and Danny Kelly, who co-chaired the event. The two came up with the boot camp theme. Kelly, who owns Main Street Kickboxing, developed three boot camp events for the kids to break up the walk around the playing field.
At the start of each lap, the kids walked along three balance beams. The next challenge was a military-style crawl under cargo netting. The last challenge was weaving in and out of a set of orange cones. The track also had two water stations set up to keep the participants cool in the hot weather, and parents along the track spritzed the kids with cold water.
Kelly’s daughter is in first grade at Cerra Vista and he said fellow parent volunteer Michael Martinez “asked me to be the fitness guru of Cerra Vista.”
As for the kid’s favorite challenge, Kelly said it was “the cargo net army crawl. They love it,” he said. “The whole theme of boot camp is working out good.”
Students participated in the walk-a-thon for 35 minutes, by grade. At 10 a.m., the second-graders were several laps into the walk.
One girl said, “I know how to balance really good cause I was in ballet,” of the balance beam challenge.”
Martinez, the president of the PTO, said Cerra Vista has historically had a strong group of parent volunteers to help with programs such as the walk-a-thon.
“It takes a village – it really is a community,” Martinez said. “It is unique to see it is more of a community than a campus.”
On the day of the walk-a-thon, more than two dozen parents volunteered time, some starting at 6:30 a.m., for the set up and staying through the afternoon to clean up. Others helped orchestrate the walk-a-thon by soliciting prize donations for the kids and water from Damm Water.
“It’s one of the first major [fundraisers] and so there is a lot of energy and momentum,” Martinez said. “And there are a lot of incentives. The Armed Forces provided a lot of the prizes.”
The students each receive a pledge sheet, and they can ask friends, family or others to make a flat donation to support them during the walk-a-thon.
The money raised by the PTO is used for a variety of things, such as field trips, student awards, the purchase of technology equipment and much more.
“[Fundraisers] are very important,” Little said. “They are important to all the schools. With state cuts education has taken a huge hit.”
The PTO fundraising also supports enrichment clubs on campus. The clubs are open to fourth- and fifth-graders at the end of the school year, and offer the students a chance to try something new.
“Children have a whole range [of talents] and we really try to get them to shine,” Little said.
Past enrichment activities have included kickboxing classes by Kelly, a softball clinic, beginning Spanish lessons, jump rope, school newspaper, art lessons and drumming. Little said she encourages volunteers from the community to contact her about providing an enrichment program at the school.
“It has been really well-received,” she said of the year-end clubs. “We want them to go out with a bang.”
