My students need 3 sets of weighted fitness balls for strength training circuits.
FULLY FUNDED! Mr. Knapp's classroom raised $479
This project is fully funded
My Students
Help fight obesity and Type 2 Diabetes in urban youth! Our club is teaching kids how to create lifelong fitness habits through distance running and strength training.
The running club currently serves a variety of boys and girls from the Back Bay, Chinatown and South End neighborhoods of Boston.
Race/ethnicity is a mix of mainly Chinese and African-American, with a few Hispanic and Caucasian students. Languages spoken are English, Cantonese, Mandarin, Haitian Creole, and Spanish. Age ranges from 15 to 17. Our school is a Boston Public Pilot School that has recently been accepted as an International Baccalaureate School and will graduate its first Diploma Program candidates in June 2012.
My Project
Since its inception, the school has struggled to obtain funding for athletics and currently only offers boysâ wrestling. We have tried for years to start a school cross-country team that would allow students to proudly represent JQUS. However, Boston Public Schools has turned down funding requests, and currently there is no plan to fund individual cross-country teams for the 2011-2012 school year or beyond.
To work around funding constraints and still serve our students, we started a running club for grades 9-12 that participates in local road races (accessible by public transportation) rather than try to get into a cross-country league, which would require significant financial commitment from the school system. We hold practices that begin at the school and move to running trails around the city. We would use any fitness equipment for circuit training after runs as well as during the colder, winter months. We meet twice a week, running an average of 3 road races per month.
Our goal to get more students interested in the sport of distance running takes on a real urgency when we considered the facts that obesity and Type II Diabetes rates exceed 50% for minority urban youth populations in many parts of the U.S.
In other words, the ability to keep fit may literally be saving their lives!
More than half of students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mr. Knapp and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
