Students at Twin Rivers Elementary School covered a lot of kilometers on Thursday, Oct. 1 to raise money for the Terry Fox Run Foundation.
The school had two loops set up, one at Millenium Park that was 1.5 km and another at the school that was 0.5 km. Each time a student made a loop, they received a mark on their hand to keep track of the distance they'd covered.
Students went out throughout the day to work on their laps, starting at 8:30 a.m. The goal was to reach 10,000 kilometers by 1:30 p.m. or so.
The challenge wasn't just for the students, but also for members of the community.
“We've sent out invitations to our whole community and our parents to come on out and run with us,” said Kere MacGregor, the school's vice-principal.
The event was organized by the school's leadership team, which is made up mostly of grade sevens and some grade sixes. The leadership team sent out the community invitations and were responsible for marking the other students' hands.
Even the Castlegar Primary students (kindergarden to grade two) were out covering kilometers.
“They were over this morning,” said MacGregor,” and they'll be doing more this afternoon.”
By the end of the day most of the kids were pretty tired, and in total they'd covered 4,199 kilometers.
MacGregor said they probably aimed a little too high with their goal, but the kids still covered a lot of ground, and though the donations hadn't yet all been counted as of this writing, MacGregor said a “generous amount was donated” for the Terry Fox Foundation.