Lincoln Trail Elementary unpacks new P.E. equipment | Education
Thanks to fundraising through SHAPE America’s health.moves.minds. program, several Lincoln Trail Elementary School students Friday got to unwrap a variety of new physical education equipment.
“I think it’s really cool,” said Morgan Eades, a second grader. “When people opened the basketballs, I was really excited because I used to play basketball. It was my favorite sport.”
In addition to basketballs, the school also received tennis balls, yarn balls, training volleyballs, bean bags and hockey sticks that are more conducive to the gym floor.
The equipment they purchased with the $2,200 granted in the form of a gift card was based on inventory and looking at their needs, physical education teacher Chad Sweeney said.
According to Sweeney, the fundraising they did was tied to the program health.moves.minds., which is part of SHAPE America — the national governing body for physical education and health. The state body is KY SHAPE.
The program offers two fundraising options. The school can either receive 50% of the money raised or the school can choose to “pay it forward” by sharing 25% of the amount raised with a charity of its choice.
“We chose option one. But what Kentucky Shape did was really cool. We got to keep 50% for the school and they chose to take 15% and give it to schools and P.E. programs in western Kentucky that were affected by the tornados,” Sweeney said.
As part of the fundraiser, Sweeney said students did a Move-a-thon. Students were encouraged to get 60 minutes of exercise a day. What they did not complete in his class, Sweeney said students were prompted to finish at home. He said a good number of his students did complete the 60 minutes at home and logged their activities.
Sweeney said any fundraising they complete or grants they receive are beneficial.
“We’re only allocated so much money per year, so every now and then a grant or some kind of fundraising is a good shot in the arm type of thing to get more equipment and get it updated,” Sweeney said.