Groups address fundraising, obesity

To the untrained eye, the 50 or so kids and smattering of parents and teachers walking the track at Raleigh's A. B. Combs Elementary after school one recent afternoon may have looked as if they were just out for some exercise on a nice fall afternoon.

In fact, they were helping to buy new equipment for their school.

The students were training for Sunday's Wake PTA Healthy Lifestyles 5K race, a friendly competition between local schools intended to slim down the kids while fattening the PTA's coffers. The race is one of several ways PTAs in the Triangle and nationwide are turning to healthier ways to raise money and nurture kids.

"We're seeing everything from 5K runs to bike-a-thons, to walk-to-school programs to bake sales with only health foods," says James Martinez, spokesman for the Chicago-based National PTA. "We're seeing a lot of advocacy at the local level for healthier programs."

Increasingly, PTAs find themselves paying for items once covered by the local school board, from playground equipment to computers. In especially strapped districts, in the New York area, for instance, street fair fundraisers such as the Taste of Tribeca pull in more than $100,000, making it possible for kids to have music lessons, author visits, even art classes.

The situation isn't as bad in the Triangle. But with the statewide obesity epidemic -- in 2007, nearly 30 percent of North Carolina's teens and 25 percent of its elementary schoolers were considered overweight -- local PTAs are looking beyond traditional fundraising cash cows such as cheesecake and cookie dough sales to events that promote a healthful lifestyle.

"We're trying to get off the bandwagon of promoting unhealthy food," says Heidi Pongracz with the Combs PTA, "and promote the importance of staying active."

Tough to kick habit

Getting off that bandwagon -- more of a gravy train in this case -- can be a challenge. Those cookie dough and cheesecake sales that make us cringe every time our kids come home with a catalog are gold mines for the local PTAs.

Organizations such as school-fundraisers.com and fundraisingzone.com provide alluring color promotional materials, sales forms and incentives ranging from trinkets to Wiis for top sales; the PTA just has to provide a sales force (students) with a captive audience (parents, relatives, beleaguered co-workers of the parents). With profit margins in the 40- to 50-percent range, selling cookie dough and cheesecake is a difficult fundraising habit to kick.

That's especially true when compared with the effort that goes into putting on an event such as a 5K.

Four years ago, the Fuquay-Varina Elementary PTA was looking for a more healthful fundraiser. "The principal got the idea to model a 5K after one being done in Johnston County," says PTA member David Mintz.

Mintz and fellow PTA parents went to West Clayton Elementary to watch the Bulldog Run. They talked to the West Clayton parents who put on the run, took notes on how the event was organized and went looking for local corporate sponsors to fund things such as race T-shirts.

Within a year, the Fuquay-Varina PTA held its own 5K, the Rocket Run. Now in its third year, the Rocket Run raised more than $14,000 last month, making it the PTA's biggest fundraiser.

And that was down from last year's total, says Mintz, because of the down economy.

"I like it," Mintz says of the race, "because you're investing in the child and the child's school." In preparation for the event, the school's 900 students participate in a year-round jogging club. Proceeds from last year's run went toward buying computer equipment.