Students Get Fit With Funky Foot

students celebrated a successful season of Funky Foot last week with a healthy breakfast and hearty accolades. Students compared achievement tokens and applauded those who earned the most miles walking or running before school.

The program was created by physical education teachers Karen Carlson, Justin Drago and school physchologist Kathy Wagar to develop fitness for life habits and socialization skills among students.

Each Tuesday and Thursday morning during the fall and spring, students can arrive early at 8 a.m. to run or walk around the track, getting their mileage cards stamped as they go. Parents and siblings are encouraged to participate, too.

Carlson thanked the dozen fifth-grade volunteers who pass out and stamp off the mileage cards.

"Without them we couldn't do this," she said. "They really do a great job."

Each season averages 110 students and 25 adults participating. The large numbers are great, said Drago, who credits the program with improving fitness testing scores over the last few years.

"You get to play with friends and run around," said fifth-grader Kaitlyn Hewes. "It's fun so you want to practice running even more."

After students complete a card they receive small, fitness themed charms to add to a chain. Each charm represents 2.5 miles.

But students aren't just logging their fitness success for the tokens. In the fall of 2010, each card completed earned 25 cents towards a donation of the student's choice. The club ended up donating $250 to the Suffield Food Pantry and $250 to Fuel Bank of Suffield.

The money was donated to Funky Foot by the . Students also earned pencils while completing cards this spring and ended up donating 140 pencils to Haiti as part of a school fundraiser. 

The following students won awards on Thursday morning:

Third grade: Karissa Stanio won the gold medal with 15 miles, Tommaso Calderan logged 12.5 miles to earn the silver medal.

Fourth grade: Jared Lobo had 27.5 miles for the gold, Matt Sweeney logged 25 miles to earn the silver and Ryan Corr and Gavin Patchet each ran 20 miles for the bronze medal.

Fifth grade: John Killam notched 17.5 miles for the gold medal and Dave Swan and Zachary Bilas tied for silver with 13 miles,.

This fifth grade class was the first to participate in the Funky Foot program for all three years. Awards were given to Jeremy Walch and John Killam for logging 85 miles during the program. Tim Casey was also honored for running 70 miles during the six seasons of Funky Foot.