Christmas came a couple of months early to Sunnyside Elementary School in Olathe, when David Kearney, the school's principal, found out Sunnyside is going to be receiving a grant of approximately $8,700 to build a trail.
This will be used by both walkers and runners, and will be a quarter-mile long, paved in asphalt. The grant is coming from Topeka's Sunflower Foundation, and represents a matching grant to go along with the close to $8,700 already raised by the Sunnyside booster club. Sunnyside has a running club with a membership of more than 2000 students, and the trail will be designed largely for them.
The boosters raised the money last year by holding a walk-a-thon they called ‘Walking on Sunshine’. Amiee Shearer, a Sunnyside parent, was the event's co-chair, and said since the school's running club is so large, event organizers decided to center the walk-a-thon on that, and came up with the idea of having each child collect pledges.
Students were tasked with raising a minimum of $30 worth of donations from family and friends; if they met the goal, they walked four laps at the walk-a-thon. Now, with over $17,000 available, construction of the running trail is set to begin next spring and will be open to community members as well as students.
Kearney and other school officials could work with a banner printing company to create an outside item to hang over the start of the trail to celebrate the opening.
