Mount Pulaski students celebrate the beginning of the school year with a color run

 

[September 28, 2018]   On Friday, September 14th, the students at Mount Pulaski Grade School kicked off the school year and another year of participation in the Logan County Coordinated Approach to Child Health (CATCH) program with a color run.

The color run is a fun activity that the students and even the teachers enjoyed as they ran the streets around the school and at various intervals were showered with a colored powder. Mindy Switzer is the CATCH coach at the school and explained that the run was conducted in waves. The first wave was the sixth through eighth grade students. The second wave was pre-kindergarten through second grade, and the third wave was students in the third through fifth grades.

The students ran a short route that consisted of two laps around East Park and the grade school. Students wore white or light colored shirts and ran through four color stations. At the stations parents, teachers, and volunteers doused the kids with powdered color from their heads to their toes. The coloring was a chalky non-toxic powder in blue, orange, pink and purple.

Parents and volunteers also helped by manning the street intersections to assure the kids were safely steered in the right direction for the run.

The Logan County CATCH program provided sunglasses for all the kids to wear, a race bib with the number ‘1’ on it, and bottled water for after the run.

Switzer said the kids, teachers, and parents really got into the color run, and enjoyed dousing and being doused with the colored powder. “Every student who ran by me was smiling from ear to ear,” said Switzer. “The race went well overall and the students had an absolute blast!”

The CATCH program in managed through the Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital Community Health Collaborative and funded by the ALMH Foundation.

CATCH is a national program geared toward elementary youth. The purpose is to help educate children at an early age about living a healthy lifestyle that includes healthy eating habits, physical activity, and substance-free living.

ALMH’s CATCH Coordinator Angela Whiteman works with area schools, providing curriculum and equipment. Each school selects a CATCH coach/coordinator to facilitate the program at that specific school. Whiteman then assists the coach/coordinator in preparing for the school year, and offers support and assistance for special programs as needed.

Schools participating in CATCH this year include Adams Grade School, Carroll Catholic School, Central School, Chester-East Lincoln, Northwest School, Washington-Monroe School, West Lincoln-Broadwell and Zion Lutheran School in Lincoln.

Other participating schools in the county include Emden Elementary, Lincoln Junior High, Mount Pulaski Grade School, New Holland-Middletown, and Zion Lutheran in Mount Pulaski.

In Mason County, Illini Central Grade School also participates in the program and the YMCA in Lincoln offers an after-school program based on CATCH with assistance from the University of Illinois Extension.

CATCH also provides an early childhood program that is being utilized at Christian Child Care, Head Start and Little Lambs Daycare.

[Nila Smith with photos by Rob Siebert]

More scenes from the color run