Washington Elementary fun run raises over $26,000

RACHEL SUN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 4 years, 2 months AGO

First-graders finish their final lap for Washington Elementary's boosterthon fun run on Oct. 29.
Photo by RACHEL SUN

A student runs with his class flag at the Oct. 29 Washington Elementary boosterthon.

A student runs at Washington Elementary's Oct. 29 fun run fundraiser.

A teacher marks a student's laps on a sheet clipped to her shirt at Washington Elementary's Oct. 29 Boosterthon.

SANDPOINT — Students at Washington Elementary raised $26,376 through the school’s first boosterthon fun run held Oct. 29 at the school.

Washington Elementary staff decided to hold the event after hearing about the success of the same program at Farmin-Stidwell Elementary School, said principal Natassia Hamer.

In previous years, the school did fundraisers including pizza movie nights at the school. This year, they had to find something different.

“The events we had in the past were all events that brought families into the building,” she said. “We can’t do that.”

The money for the event will go toward a GaGa ball pit, which is something students wanted, Hamer said, and the rest will go to teacher grants and classroom supplies.

Some of the money, she said, might go toward COVID-19-friendly field trips or other similar activities in the spring. Because students need to be kept in their respective classroom cohorts, many traditional activities doubled in cost, she said.

The school plans to hold the boosterthon again in September of next year, Hamer said.

“We really — we didn’t expect to make this much money,” Hamer said. “I believe we first set our goal at $15,000, and it went past that goal by quite a bit.”