Jogathon: Run for the Green at Birney Elementary

It’s time for the Birney Bees to strap their tennis shoes on and come together for our annual Jogathon: Run for the Green. Run for the Green will take place during the school day, on Friday, March 20. Students appeal for donations from family, friends, and neighbors to help meet our overall school goal of raising $80,000 to support our Specials enrichment programming. 

Every March, Birney Elementary hosts school families on campus to witness their students running laps for extracurricular activities. As a Title I school, more than 40% of Birney families are low-income. This means children would typically miss out on programs like Spanish, Gardening, Art, and various activities typically considered extracurricular, and therefore not funded by the San Diego Unified School District. With the help of our community and fundraisers, we make these activities happen. Join in the festivities by sponsoring a child or donating to the Beekeeper Alliance through: www.birneybees. org/get-involved. 

Birney’s Specials Program provides students with invaluable knowledge and equitable access to extracurricular activities. Through the Gardening program, students learn about the importance of balanced nutrition, sustainability, and the lifecycle of plants. They create meals together from seed to harvest and partake in cultural exchanges through the exploration of cuisines and dishes involving their fruits and vegetables. They practice circularity and ecology by creating compost out of scraps and learning the importance of separating their rubbish. 

Students also have access to wellness and mindfulness classes, where they explore self-regulation and community building—skills even adults can benefit from. In addition to this, students also partake in language and art specials. This helps them explore concepts beyond what standard “language arts” teaches and expand their cultural knowledge. 

We invite you to take part in this and other fundraisers, or have a peek at the school garden through the multi-use green. The children are always excited to share their harvest and gardening skills with the community.