The St. Hedwig School Parents Association’s most recent fundraising event Jog-A-Thon held on May 12 at the school’s sports field was a huge success. Not only it far exceeded its goal of $30,000, but also the students had a blast participating in an activity that promotes good health. The success is due to the invaluable support from families, friends and some business companies who donated money and in kind. The Parents Association has collected over $54,000 so far. Top Overall Fundraisers were: Flynn and Grace Twomey (1st Place), Sofia DeLucia (2nd Place) and Brooke and Brady Luyben (3rd Place).
Students from Transitional Kindergarten to Eight Grade participated and were divided in five groups, two grades each. They had 20 minutes to run as many laps as possible around a 1/10 of a mile track. Volunteer parents marked each runner’s wristband every time he/she completed a lap. To keep the energy up, a DJ was out on the field all day playing upbeat music. Some teachers ran with their class to offer encouragement. Families and friends came to cheer on the students too. There were two water stations for those who needed to hydrate and all of them stopped by to do so. After each running group’s race, participants grabbed their choice of healthy snacks (sliced apples and whole bananas) as they left the field to go back to their respective classrooms.
A number of awesome prizes and incentives were given out before and after the event for top girl and boy runner per grade, top fundraisers, individual and family fundraising achievements and last but not the least, school wide accomplishments.
For reaching the $30K goal, the whole school body also enjoyed ice cream after the closing ceremonies. The Jog-A-Thon event was lead by 1st VP-Community Events Erin DeLucia and 3rd VP-Auction Sarah Ireland. This fundraiser has not been done for many years. Last Friday was the first since and due to its astounding result, ‘it possibly will replace other fundraisers’, said Ireland.
The funds raised from the Jog-A-Thon will be used to help install the school’s air conditioning system scheduled this summer. This facility improvement will greatly benefit the SHS community and the church’s School of Religious Education (SRE) program attendees as well.
There is still a ways to go, so for those who want to make a contribution to this cause, please contact the school office at 562-296-9060 or visit St. Hedwig School at 3591 Orangewood Ave. in Los Alamitos.
This article appeared in the May 31, 2017 print edition of the News Enterprise.