St. Paul Lutheran School’s sixth annual Fun Run was a little bit different on Friday than in years past.
The event held at Atwood Park throughout the day usually includes a variety of activities including a bouncy house, relays and more hands-on activity stations; however, with social distancing protocols in effect this year, the event was strictly a ‘fun run’.
A fundraiser for the Lutheran school, first through eighth grade students enjoyed some time out of the classroom by running laps around the park.

“We simplified it this year,” principal Steve Hall said. “They got pledges, they walk or jog for 30 minutes. We’ll still probably raise about the same amount of funds.”
Funds earned through previous years’ fun runs have been used to purchase new science curriculum, Chromebooks and general school improvements.
“St. Paul is like a mighty-might…I come from big Lutheran schools, this is my 36th year… the other schools I was at were double, not quite double the size enrollment-wise and congregations were bigger, which a lot of the support for the school comes from the congregation…Coming here, St. Paul accomplishes almost the same things with half the resources. It’s pretty impressive,” Hall said.
Students participated in groups on Friday, coming to Atwood Park by classes such as first graders with eighth graders who acted as ‘buddies’ for the younger students as they all completed laps around the park.
“This year we had to change things up a bit to adhere to social distancing guidelines and change our Fun Run to a Walk A Thon; which eliminated our traditional obstacle course and team building activities. Our students still worked hard to raise funds and reach their class goals,” St. Paul PTL member Jennifer Heal said. The weather for the day was beautiful and with the support of many parents, family members, staff and friends we were able to surpass our anticipated goal of $4,000.  We are still calculating figures, but we are very grateful for the support and donations we have received thus far.”