Running toward the future

Michael Miller

It’s been 1962 for the last 43 years at Sonora Elementary School, as

the blacktop and playground equipment have cracked and rusted since

the school’s inception.

Next fall, though, the Costa Mesa campus could sport a sleek new

backyard. On Friday, the Sonora PTA held a jog-a-thon to help raise

funds for playground construction, including asphalt, swings, a slide

and a sun shade over the jungle gym.

“We are ecstatic,” Sonora office secretary Leslie Rolsheim said.

“Everybody can hardly wait. The equipment we have is really, really

old -- probably since the beginning of the school.”

Over the last few years, the PTA has accumulated nearly $25,000

through gift-wrapping, candy sales and other fundraisers. To reach

the amount needed to renovate the playground, the parents needed a

few extra thousand dollars -- and they enlisted the students’ help.

Each of the school’s 360 students ran in the jog-a-thon, some with

pledges and others with flat donations. During 25-minute periods on

Friday, teachers brought their classes out to run laps around the

field, with orange slices and water on hand to keep blood sugar high.

After students hand in their donations Friday, the school plans to

hand out prizes for the most laps and the most money raised. Mette

Segerblom, Sonora’s PTA president, said the playground renovation

would complement the Measure A work on the school, which the district

recently finished.

“The focus has been on playground equipment for a while, and we’re

getting toward the end of that,” she said.

Next year, she added, the PTA plans to raise additional funding to

pay for equipment on the kindergarten playground, which is mostly

barren.

For students, the jog-a-thon provided a welcome added recess

during the school day. First-grader Julian Jackson, 6, got five

family members to pledge for him, and he said he planned to run 40

laps in the event. Although an avid exerciser, Julian said he rarely

went jogging.

He does BMX exercising, he explained. “You ride your bike and that

kind of stuff.”