Our state testing is officially over today!  Well, not including make up administration but one can dream.  Tomorrow we are having a special event at our school.  It is in conjunction with The American Cancer Society.

Our school has been involved with The Relay For Life for the past three years.  At my previous school we had been involved for the past 6 or 7 years.  I am a true believer in teaching children the importance of giving back to those in need.  It is just the right thing to do. I also have a personal buy in to fighting cancer.  My wonderful mom lost her long battle against this horroible disease this Feburary. 

Our school is holding our Mini-Relay tomorrow afternoon.  It is a scaled down version of the actual Relay.  We participate in that one as well, but this gives all of our kids to participate.  We want them to experience it as well.  Each child is required to get at least $5 in donations to be able to attend.  This may sound like a lot from every kid, but we work with them and give them plenty of time to gather the donations.  Many teachers help support thier students and everyone who wants to attend is allowed. 

We decorate our track with purple Relay balloons, informative signs from the ACS and anything else we can find.  We have food and drink tents (we give each child a soda and an ACS cup filled with popcorn (all donated).  This year we will have a dunking booth, snow cone machine and face painting.  We will charge $1 for these.  And yes, I WILL be in the dunking booth!!  Hey, its to fight cancer!

I encourage any school to look into this type of event.  It teaches kids to give back and care about others in their community.  It helps them grow.  It helps your community.  You will even probably get a nice article in the paper!  It shows your community that your school cares and does wonderful things.  In addition to all of this, it provides donations for a worthy cause.  If this is something you might be interested in, I encourage you to email me or contact the ACS at ww. cancer.org.