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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.

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Parent Replies to "Our Annual Jog-a-Thon went GREEN this year!"

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trixieanddaisy
trixieanddaisy June 11, 2008
Re: Our Annual Jog-a-Thon went GREEN this year!
The Jog a Thon, while always fun and a good way to raise money for our school, had an even bigger impact this year on the students. It gave them a chance to focus on and learn more about about the environment. It also provided a way for them to help the earth that they love! Thanks go to Diane for acting on her idea and pursuing it to make a great week for our kids!
tracydupree
tracydupree June 9, 2008
Re: Our Annual Jog-a-Thon went GREEN this year!
To add to the original post:
The GREEN Jog-a-thon program at our school was a tremendous event. Diane Tenner was instrumental in coordinating it, and it was an event that was long over due. Kudos to her for setting such a high benchmark for the years to come and for other schools to emulate. I am sharing the ideas with my middle school aged son's Charter school. It's a fabulous program that can serve as an annual (or bi-annual) fundraiser and the effort teaches our children to conserve and recycle.
Great work!!
Watson
Watson June 5, 2008
Re: Our Annual Jog-a-Thon went GREEN this year!
It's great to see how well the event went. My kids told me they have a recycling program at their school, but I've never heard about anything from the staff. It would be wonderful to start something like that at our school. thanks for the inspiring ideas!
TNTsmom
TNTsmom June 5, 2008
Re: Our Annual Jog-a-Thon went GREEN this year!
Hi Sharon,
Thanks for sharing! It was great to read about the activities the kids planned for themselves! I love that you put the kids in charge of their own activities! You sound like a very fun afterschool director! Also, just to clarify, I only came up with the idea of the recycling drive, helped with it and the Green Run. There is a WONDERFUL person in charge of these types of things at our school. Without her approval and spirit to do something related to Earth Day, it wouldn't have happened. So nice to hear from you and thanks again for sharing!!!
SharonMcCarthy
SharonMcCarthy June 5, 2008
Re: Our Annual Jog-a-Thon went GREEN this year!
How lucky you are to be in charge of a whole school and create change. Sounds like it was a lot of fun and a great learning opportunity. I am afterschool site director at a public school for kids k-5. For earth day I wanted my kids to be pro active, so I broke them up the grade 2-5 kids into six groups and they had to run there own programs for the kindergarten and first grade kids. Some of the exhibits they thought of was exercising in the outdoors, observing nature surrounding our school with binoculars and magnifying glasses, creating earth day flags, taking a environmental quiz, a nature scavenger hunt, creating their own earth day storys to read to a group, and going on a nature walk with the 5th grade guide teaching the younger ones about animal habitats, and the importance of the environment. I fimed the day and hope to show it on our local cable station. It is amazing what kids will do once we give them the chance to take charge.

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