Students at Lisgar Collegiate Institute participate in the Terry Fox National School Run Day.
Some 800 students and their teachers poured out of Lisgar Collegiate Institute to flood the canal pathways between Somerset and Pretoria Bridge just after lunch last Friday.
This is the fourth year Scott Barker, a civics teacher at the Centretown high school, has been coordinating the event.
Since he took over, he says the school has raised close to $20, 000 for the Terry Fox Foundation, which funds cancer research across Canada.
Barker says he got involved because he was personally inspired by Terry Fox.
“I try to use him in my classes as an example of one person that made a difference,” Barker says.
He says trying to get students to care about an issue that doesn't directly affect them is very difficult.
In the first two years, Barker says he did not offer incentives to join the run because he struggled with the ethics of “bribing students with pizza.”
“I wanted students to help their community because they want to help their community, not because they want pizza,” he says.
Barker has learned that the chance for classes to win a pizza lunch is a great way to get students to participate.
John Ruff, the head of athletics at the school gave his grade 11 gym class participation marks based on donations and on how many laps they completed. Four laps was their goal, which adds up to about 10 kilometres.
Ruff says it is really hard to get students involved in physical activity.
Based on Friday's turnout, it appears students are more prepared to get physical because it is for a cause that matters to them. But, many students are reluctant to get involved.
Kai Thomas, a Grade 12 student, says “about half of the people leave at lunch time to get out of it.” At noon, before the run, students lined up outside the gym door with notes excusing them from the afternoon’s activity.
Thomas and his friend Pierre Lafontaine dressed identically in matching gym shorts, high socks, sneakers and lime green head and wrist bands.
For them, the Terry Fox run was an opportunity to enjoy an afternoon and attempt to get other students more excited about cancer research.
Lafontaine says their outfits were just for fun, but he hoped the other students would take notice and get involved.
One group of Grade 11 girls came together to lead their fellow students in the run. Some are members of a class offered by the school that requires 30 extra hours of community service, where students learn how to get involved in their community.
Feven Mulugeta, a member of the class, says she got involved because cancer is such a big issue.
“So many people in our society are being affected. It’s a great way to help out in the community,” she says.
Mulugeta took the leadership course because she wants the opportunity to see what is really going on in the world and to learn how to give something back.
This year, Barker says the turnout was about the same as in previous years. and the school is well on their way to matching the fundraising totals of previous years.