Five Points of Life Kids Marathon a runaway success

Five Points of Life Manager Brite Whitaker believes the numbers tell only part of the story she saw at Saturday’s Five Points of Life Kids Marathon in Ocala.

Courtesy Photo

Two Marion County schools earned special awards for the number of participants who registered for the event. Dr. N.H. Jones Elementary School received the same amount for having the most participants, 102

And they’re off…. more than 400 students participated in last week’s Five Points of Life Kids Marathon.

McIntosh Area School had 65 of its 98 students register and received a $400 check to support its physical education program for having the highest percentage of participants

 “We had 440 participants register this year, that’s an increase of nearly 35 percent over last year,” said Whitaker. “But the biggest measures of success I saw were all the smiles on the kids’ faces when they got their medals at the finish line.”

 For the event children in kindergarten through eighth grade ran or walked 25 miles prior to Saturday and then gathered to complete the final 1.2 miles to reach the marathon distance of 26.2 miles.

“While it wasn’t a race, it was fun to see how many of the children tackled the day like they were racing for Olympic gold. It was also obvious that many of these young people had been training hard for this day,” Whitaker said.

The Five Points of Life program was started by LifeSouth Community Blood Centers to help build awareness of the five ways to share life through the donation of blood, apheresis, marrow, cord blood and organ and tissue. The youngsters and their parents were reminded of those five ways to donate at the starting line. A booth set up near the starting line also offered a fun lesson about the components of human blood and what they do.

A glass of water represented the plasma. We added some red Kool-Aid to it to represent the oxygen-carrying red blood cells, a few Tic Tacs stood in for the infection-fighting white blood cells, while gummy worms represented platelets that aid in clotting,” Whitaker explained.

Two Marion County schools earned special awards for the number of participants who registered for the event. McIntosh Area School had 65 of its 98 students register and received a $400 check to support its physical education program for having the highest percentage of participants.  Dr. N.H. Jones Elementary School received the same amount for having the most participants, 102.

The Five Points of Life Web site, www.fivepointsoflife.org, has more information about the program.