Nov. 18--To the untrained eye, the 50 or so kids and smattering of parents and teachers walking the track at Raleigh's A. B. Combs Elementary after school one recent afternoon may have looked as if they were just out for some exercise on a nice fall afternoon.
In fact, they were helping to buy new equipment for their school.
The students were training for Sunday's Wake PTA Healthy Lifestyles 5K race, a friendly competition between local schools intended to slim down the kids while fattening the PTA's coffers. The race is one of several ways PTAs in the Triangle and nationwide are turning to healthier ways to raise money and nurture kids.
"We're seeing everything from 5K runs to bike-a-thons, to walk-to-school programs to bake sales with only health foods," says James Martinez, spokesman for the Chicago-based National PTA. "We're seeing a lot of advocacy at the local level for healthier programs."
Increasingly, PTAs find themselves paying for items once covered by the local school board, from playground equipment to computers. In especially strapped districts, in the New York area, for instance, street fair fundraisers such as the Taste of Tribeca pull in more than $100,000, making it possible for kids to have music lessons, author visits, even art classes.
The situation isn't as bad in the Triangle. But with the statewide obesity epidemic -- in 2007, nearly 30 percent of North Carolina's teens and 25 percent of its elementary schoolers were considered overweight -- local PTAs are looking beyond traditional fundraising cash cows such as cheesecake and cookie dough sales to events that promote a healthful lifestyle.
"We're trying to get off the bandwagon of promoting unhealthy food," says Heidi Pongracz with the Combs PTA, "and promote the importance of staying active."
Tough to kick habit
Getting off that bandwagon -- more of a gravy train in this case -- can be a challenge. Those cookie dough and cheesecake sales that make us cringe every time our kids come home with a catalog are gold mines for the local PTAs.
Organizations such as school-fundraisers.com and fundraisingzone.com provide alluring color promotional materials, sales forms and incentives ranging from trinkets to Wiis for top sales; the PTA just has to provide a sales force (students) with a captive audience (parents, relatives, beleaguered co-workers of the parents). With profit margins in the 40- to 50-percent range, selling cookie dough and cheesecake is a difficult fundraising habit to kick.
That's especially true when compared with the effort that goes into putting on an event such as a 5K.
Four years ago, the Fuquay-Varina Elementary PTA was looking for a more healthful fundraiser. "The principal got the idea to model a 5K after one being done in Johnston County," says PTA member David Mintz.
Mintz and fellow PTA parents went to West Clayton Elementary to watch the Bulldog Run. They talked to the West Clayton parents who put on the run, took notes on how the event was organized and went looking for local corporate sponsors to fund things such as race T-shirts.
Within a year, the Fuquay-Varina PTA held its own 5K, the Rocket Run. Now in its third year, the Rocket Run raised more than $14,000 last month, making it the PTA's biggest fundraiser.
And that was down from last year's total, says Mintz, because of the down economy.
"I like it," Mintz says of the race, "because you're investing in the child and the child's school." In preparation for the event, the school's 900 students participate in a year-round jogging club. Proceeds from last year's run went toward buying computer equipment.
Likewise, Combs Elementary has discovered that little runners can be effective cash calves. Combs' annual Gator Gallop, a seven-year-old running competition between classes held in the spring, is the PTA's top fundraiser, pulling in $9,000 last year.
With events such as the Bulldog Run, Rocket Run and Gator Gallop, kids get those same parents, relatives and beleaguered parental co-workers to sponsor them, either with a flat fee or an amount per lap completed.
Such events are proving effective fundraisers but are also getting kids off their butts.
At Fuquay-Varina Elementary, for instance, the kids run throughout the school year. Periodically, the class logging the most laps gets possession of the school's coveted Golden Shoe award.
At Combs, kids get 15 minutes every morning to go out and run or walk the track. Events such as the Gator Gallop and Sunday's Wake County PTA Healthy Lifestyles 5K provide a type of motivation that changes how the kids look at exercise.
Debbie Powell, Combs' physical education teacher, says: "They leave here thinking, 'Wow! That wasn't hard. That was a lot of fun.'"
Exercise videos at school
Sarah Martin, president of the Wake County PTA, thinks that healthful fundraisers will become more widespread as PTAs discover their benefits.
She bases that in part on a pair of "Brains and Bodies" workshops she conducted for local PTAs this fall. The workshops were intended to show the relationship between an active body and a healthy brain. Among the workshop's suggestions: Start a walking club.
At least one school -- Martin Middle School in Raleigh -- launched such a club as a result of her workshop, and several other PTAs wrote seeking information on starting clubs at their schools.
"I think what's happening is that people have heard of Eat Smart, Move More, but they're not aware of what's available," says Martin.
Eat Smart, Move More is a collective of health-oriented organizations -- from the American Heart Association and the Alice Aycock Poe Center for Health Education to the YMCA of North Carolina -- working with the state Department of Health and Human Services to help North Carolinians, well, eat smart and move more.
A similar group -- Advocates for Health in Action -- has formed in Wake County to make residents aware of local resources that can aid in healthy living. The "Brains and Bodies" workshop was a result of the latter collaboration.
While emulating is good, some ideas for healthful programs are organic.
Last year, Cyndi Keller, a PE teacher at Wildwood Forest Elementary, got the idea to make exercise videos featuring teachers. The five-minute videos aired twice a week, at the 8:30 a.m. bell, on the school's TV station.
The PTA built on the concept, getting kids to star in the videos and enlisting the volunteer services of a local postproduction video company to add music and give the videos a professional feel. A new video, filmed by parents and choreographed by the PE department, is produced each month.
The concept recently was one of 15 nationwide to receive a $1,000 Healthy Lifestyles Award from the National PTA. The video serves a dual purpose, says Wildwood PTA President Dawn Roy.
"The biggest thing," says Roy, "is that it's a positive behavioral support program." By that, she means that to star in a video, students must be nominated by the PE teachers based on good behavior. That gives students who may not excel academically a chance to be recognized.
"The kids all want to be a part of it," says Roy, who says students jump at the chance to be on TV -- even if it is just in school. "To them, they feel like they're running it."
The video's other benefit is more basic, yet something that's been lost with once-a-week PE classes and shortened recesses.
"It warms the kids up, gets their brains going," says Roy. "It gets the jitters out."
joe.miller@newsobserver.com or 919-812-8450
-----
To see more of The News & Observer, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.newsobserver.com.
Copyright (c) 2008, The News & Observer, Raleigh, N.C.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.