Los Robles Wolves run for a good cause
Wednesday early morning as the sun set, students from Los Robles Elementary School ran around the track for for a good cause during their their annual ‘Run with the Wolves’ activity for Red Ribbon Week.
“Students are getting the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle, and this is part of saying no to drugs at the same time, with the benefit of fundraising,” said Principal Carla Crocker. “We’ve been having activities all week for Red Ribbon Week, and every year we do this jog-a-thon as a fundraiser too.”
The jog-a-thon is an annual event at Los Robles and this year they decided to do it during Red Ribbon Week. Crocker said they have been doing the run for at least six years, and sees it as a great benefit for the kids and the school.
All grades including special education classes participated through the day, and each grade level had a time slot to run at the track.
The students ran for 30 minutes and the teachers tallied their laps. At the end of the jog-a-thon students counted the number of laps ran to then collect pledges.
Principal Crocker said people sponsor the students like parents and other family members for about 10 cents per lap, and they collect their pledges and bring in their money by the first of November.
“These things are just as important as their academics because they are doing things that will help the school and their education and health,” said Crocker. She added, “the students have a run day during their physical education class days before to prepare them to sustain the 30 minutes of the jog.”
As the fourth grade students finished their 30 minute time slot of the run, the sixth graders prepared for the jog as their physical education teacher made them stretch.
The time started and students were running along the track with lots of energy as parents cheered them on.
“I already ran six laps,” said Alexis Farfan as he caught his breath from running. “I want to run 18 laps because we have a competition in our class; if we run more than 18 laps we get 180 points.”
Crocker mentioned there is a committee for the jog-a-thon and stu-
dents who bring in a certain amount of money or run a certain number of laps get prizes like a free dessert from Wendy's.
Last year the students raised $3,000 with a little more than 500 of them participating.
“We use the money for fields trips, school events, books and other rewards,” said Crocker, adding that this year they will use the money towards college campus tours. Sixth graders will be going to University of California, Davis and fourth graders will visit the University of California Los Angeles.
“We want to expose them to colleges and they are pretty excited about that.”
Thursday Los Robles will have a ‘Move the Ball' relay and dress up from a specific era. Friday, they will have another dress up day and the activity will be ‘No Hands Get Up.'