On March 1, St. John Catholic School will host its first-ever Mardi Gras March 5K race at its campus in Westminster, an event that will be open to the public.
According to Deborah Kennedy, a member of the St. John Catholic School Parents and Teachers Organization, the school was looking for a way to celebrate the end of winter and the timing was right for the theme, with Mardi Gras officially falling on March 4.
"We like to mix fun activities with healthy activities and this was something we thought would be great to do after a long winter to celebrate the coming spring," Kennedy said. "It's going to be a real party atmosphere ... It's a way to get the community out and celebrating together."
The race will be a fun run, untimed, and appropriate for all ages and ability levels, Kennedy said. To add a splash of Mardi Gras color, runners will be literally splashed with colorful mixtures of water and chalk.
"Runners wear a white T-shirt and every time they run through the mile marker, they are sprayed with a different color of chalk: Green, gold and purple," she said. "Green and gold are our school colors so we are partial to those and purple is a traditional Mardi Gras color."
The color race element was not part of the original plan, according to Dottie Pumputis, also a member of the Parents and Teachers Organization, but it was adopted as a way to make things more festive.
"We really came up with the Mardi Gras theme before we decided to throw some color in there too," Pumputis said. "I know we have had several parents who are runners and they are involved in all sorts of races and they thought it would be something fun."
The race will begin at 8:30 a.m. and will consist of three loops around the St. John Catholic School campus, followed by a pancake breakfast at The Portico, according to Mary Ford-Naill, a member of the St. John Catholic School board and marketing committee.
"It's more about the fellowship," Naill said. "There will be beverages, coffee and juice and pancakes, but it's really just the camaraderie of being able to sit down after an event like this at The Portico."
Registration for the event will be $30 for those age 5 and older, free for children age 4 and younger.
Race day registration will be available beginning at 7:30 a.m., but Kennedy said that advanced registration is preferred and available online at http://www.5k.sjwestschool.org/#!mardi-gras-march/c8k2 until noon on Feb. 28.
"There is the party after the race so we would like to know about how many people are coming with some measure of certainty," Kennedy said.
Money raised by the event will go to support St. John Catholic School and tuition assistance, another first for the 148-year-old institution, according to Kennedy. Although the school has held fundraising running events before, this is the first time an event has been open to the public.
"We normally just raise money within the school, so this is the first time we are raising money and awareness of the school with a public event," she said.
According to Pumputis, while raising money for the school is important, the larger focus is on introducing the school to the community and part of an ongoing move to become more engaged in the community.
"We've been in existence for almost 150 years, but we want more people to be more aware and to reach out to the community. We would like to have more students," she said. "We are hoping to make this an annual event. This is our first year so we really don't know how it will go down, but we are hoping to do a 5K once a year."
