I have posted before about our training group here in Livermore starting a running program for kids at Rancho Las Positas elementary school. The program has been going great and we have been able to roll it out to every elementary school in town. For the last 3 years we have signed up for Arnold’s Governors Fitness Challenge and have made it all the way to top school in the Bay Area. In 3 years our 528 kids have run over 120,000 miles around a mowed track in the grass.
This Wednesday our school was announced as the winner for the whole state of California. With the award came a $100,000 fitness center, but we did not take the prize. After reading about schools with no safe place to play or do PE, we decided to donate our prize to a school who needed it way more than we do. I think it will be a lesson in generosity that will last them a lifetime. I know I will never forget it.
If any of you have an interest is starting a running program at your schools please shoot me a PM. We have figured it out through trial and error and made a how to instruction guide.
I love it! …and the ‘two big feet, 6 little feet’ to represent a marathon distance…great concept and obviously motivating for the kids. When I read about the ‘pay it forward’ part in the article - lump in my throat. Very cool indeed!!!
“Does he not require a security detail?”
He had a full on security team just like the President. The plan was for him to walk off stage and exit through a side door but he went off plan to go meet our kids freaking out his team a bit. Of course the kids mobbed him but he just loved it. The security detail moved the adults away but the kids all got to shake his hand or hug him. One kid was a bit overwhelmed and started to cry. Arnold saw this, got down on his knee and wiped away the tears with his own shirt. He stayed with the kid joking with him until he stopped crying and smiled. Arnold had a little "flex off’ competition with the kid and then went on his way. Very cool man!
I read your prior post on your program at the school. I was fascinated and thought it seemed like a great idea. I just wanted to recognize your tremendous accomplishment, not so much the award and recognition, but the success of your program with the kids in the school. You should be very proud; this program will have a significant positive impact on a lot of those kids for the rest of their lives. The fact that the program is healthy, fun, and ties in with your own interests must make it extremely satisfying. Well done.
“I wonder how much flack you’ll take from parents due to giving away the funds to another school!”
You sound like you have worked with parents in the past. We had issues at the start when parents heard we were a finalist and that we had offered to donate the prize. Parents asked why we would do that and why more parents and the PTA were not asked to vote on the decision. We told them about the schools who had written essays saying that their kids could not go outside because of gang activity, or the air quality was too poor to run, or the playground was under a freeway overpass and the noise and smog made the kids sick. The needs of some schools would make you cry.
Our school is not well off and if the prize was cash, school supplies or money to build our running track we would have taken the prize for sure. But we have an awesome fitness program with our running club so taking a $100k fitness center would have been greedy. Kind of like a golf tournament where the winner of the long drive contest gets a new driver. So the day before we went to Sacramento we had an assembly to talk to the kids about giving as part of their character education program. And we told them that if we won we were going to donate the equipment. They thought it was awesome and they were on board. Now that the parents see how proud their kids are and heard about the needs of the school who gets the prize, they are totally on board with the donation.
There will always be folks who will have a problem with any decision, but being part of the process that donated this fitness center to a school that truly needs it is one of the proudest moments of my life. Here is a quote from Jake Steinfield “Body By Jake”.
They were touched by Rancho Las Positas’ offer, said Jake Steinfeld, chairman of the Governor’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports.
“To see these kids wanting to help other kids … it renews my optimism for the future of this great state,” he said.
Tell me that is not worth $100k.
We are raising $40,000 to build a real running track at our school. Right now they run on a oval I mow into the grass field so there is a lot of muddy feet whenever the weather gets bad. I hope that the goodwill from our donation will inspire people to donate to out track fund. In the end everybody wins.
Yes, he was shorted than I expected and there was security detail. I got an arm across the chest when I was walking our two students to the front row for the picture Dave posted
Nice story and nice job paying it forward. Was the right things to do and you earned a couple good chips in the karma game. Nicely done sir, nicely done.
