A Run For Your Money…Literally

Runners to be set, goals to be met…it’s time for this year’s annual Falcon 5k Fun Run.

While the Fun Run is still fairly new to the CB community, it’s still proving to be one of the most exciting events that a student, parent, alum, staff member, or really anyone can get involved in. It is set to take place on the morning of April 1st with the race starting at 9:00 AM sharp.

The Talon spoke with CB’s Director of Advancement Mrs. Nancy Smith-Fagan to learn some more about this highly anticipated event.

“This is a fundraiser for CB, specifically for student activities,” she stated. “It’s replacing the magazine drive because with the drive, we were sending 50% of the purchase back to the company…with the Fun Run, 100% remains with our students.”

Mrs. Smith-Fagan also mentioned how the Fun Run is a better fit for CB because it encourages an inclusive community, one of CB’s core principles.

“This is all about community,” she stated. “We are coming together for something that benefits us all. It’s activity, it’s fitness…the idea of getting everyone together for a fun community event in beautiful weather is a better fit for CB.”

The need for such a huge event to fund CB’s student activities stems from the amazing variety of clubs, sports, arts, and more that CB students are able to get involved in on campus.

Director of Student Activities Mrs. Rose Ann Holmes explains why this event is so important for the CB community.

“Tea Time Club, Wellspring, Senior Grad Night — all of these activities get money from the Fun Run, so it’s really important that people participate,” she explains. “Student Activities is only allowed to have one fundraiser a year, so all we do when we sell candy grams or things like that is get our money back. All of the money that we allocate to the different activities on campus come from this one event, the Fun Run…that’s why it is super important.”

This year, there are a bunch of new ways that people throughout the CB community can get involved with the run, including fundraising.

“The big thing that is new is that we are better set up to handle team registrations,” stated Mrs. Smith-Fagan. “We teamed up with Active Networks and Crowdrise so that people — as a team — could fund raise and get sponsors to raise money.”

Mrs. Smith-Fagan also explained that there are plenty of other ways for students and parents to get involved with the run, especially on the day of the Fun Run.

“There are people involved in promoting the race and looking for donations, or you can volunteer at the race to help set up or do race management or afterwards to help clean up…Another fun job would be cheering on the runners. There are a whole bunch of ways to get involved.”

For Junior Navneet Khaira (‘18), volunteering at the race last year was extremely fun and something that she plans on doing again this year.

“Initially, I just volunteered because I had to for Student Council,” she admitted, “but I quickly realized that I was going to have a great time helping out with the event. The energy that morning was amazing, and it was so cool to see the whole community out there to support us…I can’t wait for this year!”

While it’s extremely important that everyone has fun at this year’s Fun Run, there are also some huge goals that the CB community needs to work together to reach.

“Last year we raised $15,000 with 700 runners,” revealed Mrs. Smith-Fagan. “This year we hope to raise $25,000 and increase the number of runners. We need to raise $15,000 for student activities and the rest of the funds will go towards tuition assistance for CB students.”

If we all work hard and run even harder, I know that this year’s Falcon 5k Fun Run will blow those goals out of the water. Because if there’s one thing that I’ve witnessed over my past four years at CB, it’s that anything is possible when our community comes together around one cause.

So lace up those runnin’ shoes and dust off that headband — this year’s Falcon 5k is going to be the best one yet.