Our annual Jog-a-Thon is typically our largest fundraiser, but we decided to add something special to it this year, and were really pleased with the results.  Treepeople of Studio City, CA and the Los Angeles Dept of Public Works have come up with a way to engage schools in diverting trash from our landfills through recycling competitions.  Our small school never thought we could beat out the larger public schools, but surprisingly enough....we did!  Mathew Palmer, Program Coordinator at Treepeople was a wealth of information for getting our recycling drive off the ground.  We decided to promote recycling for two weeks prior to the competition and come up with a coordinating theme for our Annual Jog-a-Thon.  We called it "2008 Green Run" this year and while a few stellar, high school boys took time out of the PE class to sort through yucky recycling, our 3rd, 4th and 5th graders created thank you banners to our partners and sponsors, to hang during our Green Run(Trader Joe's, Generation Earth, LA Marathon, etc).   It was a schoolwide (K-12) effort and our Green Run was the perfect way to end the Battle of the Schools recycling drive.  Some of the teachers even coordinated earthcare lessons and art projects to coincide with the comptetion and Green Run.  It  helped us raise enough money to purchase some trees for our campus and got all of the kids involved.  If you live in Los Angeles, check out Generation Earth's Battle of the Schools(www.generationearth.com) and enter your school next year!  It was a great way to teach kids about the importance of recycling, while promoting environmental stewardship.