TRAINING HARD: Linuwel School teacher Lauren Colvin and her year 4 students Darcy Butters, Audrey Bell, Akaiya Price, Harriet
The steps taken by Lauren Colvin and her students this Sunday will reach much further than the course of the Maitland River Run.
In between training for the event and completing homework assignments, class 4 from Linuwel School have been busily fund-raising for an orphanage in Nepal.
Sponsors have been sought for entering the race and when all 15 students cross the finish line on Sunday, they will have accomplished the task for a number of worthwhile objectives.
“It started off as a bit of a challenge for fun and fitness,” Colvin said. “But then we decided to raise a bit of money for a good cause as well.
“It is all positive and it means the kids will be running with a purpose.”
The link between Sunday’s run, an East Maitland school and the Himalayas nation is Colvin, who has a friend living in Nepal that she will visit later this year.
During that time they will volunteer at the orphanage, which has been established to help abandoned children aged between three and 14 years of age.
Colvin’s students, aged between nine and 10 years, fall into the same age bracket and have already begun writing correspondence to their overseas peers in the form of letters.
Friends and family of the immediate class will also take part in the Maitland River Run on Sunday, extending the group to about 50 runners.
Colvin said she was hoping to raise about $2000.
The Maitland River Run will have 4, 8 and 12 kilometre distances on offer this Sunday while there is $1000 on the line for the feature Maitland Mile race.
■ See tomorrow’s Maitland Mercury for a final preview of the Maitland River Run.