On Saturday, Feb. 18, Auburn High School’s Key Club—the high school branch of the Kiwanis International service club—hosted its first one-mile and 5K fundraising event.
The Colors for Children’s 5K was put on to help the state branch of the Key Club reach its fundraising goal of $150,000 for Children’s Hospital of Alabama, according to AHS senior and AHS Key Club President Jeremy Lee.
“The Key Club has a partnership with Children’s Hospital of Alabama, and Auburn High School has hosted the race to help us fulfill our goal,” Lee said. “All proceeds will go towards Children’s Hospital.”
Lee noted that the fundraising efforts for Children’s Hospital were not solely coming from AHS. He said their goal of $150,000 was a statewide effort that all Alabama-based Key Club programs would be working towards fulfilling.
The Key Club’s activity in the community does not stop at this one event. Lee said that the club is working consistently throughout the year by requiring service hours for their volunteers and hosting drives with the Exodus Ranch in Opelika, East Alabama Food Bank, Rescue K911 shelter in Camp Hill and several others.
While this was the first annual Colors for Children’s 5K, Lee and the club’s cosponsor Audra Welch, a chemistry teacher at AHS, were both hopeful for its future.
“This was our first annual race,” Lee said, “and we hope this happens next year and the year after and forever. We had a great debut for this, and we hope to make it even stronger next year so we can make this a really well-known thing within the community.”
Welch expressed similar hopes for the event. More notably, Welch hoped that the money raised by AHS’s branch was put to good use by Children’s Hospital.
“I just hope that the money that we raise and donate is just going to be able to support the families that have to visit Children’s Hospital,” Welch said. “I’m not sure how they’ll use the money, but I’m just glad that we’re able to support something that’s hopefully going to be able to brighten somebody’s day in a really tough time.”
While dozens showed up for the debut race, both Lee and Welch hoped to see growth for the event in the future. Lee and Welch were in agreeance that the race needed to become a yearly staple for the Key Club and AHS that many in the community could look forward to and come out and enjoy.
“I definitely hope that this grows,” Welch said. “I hope this becomes something that we can do every year; I hope that there’s more participants; I hope we’re able to raise more money; and I hope it just gets bigger and bigger and bigger.”
Welch, as the Key Club’s cosponsor, said she was grateful for the students involved in the club coming out on such a cold morning to help make this come to life. She said that she wanted this to be a great memory for all involved, whether they be participants in the race or volunteers making it happen.
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Tucker Massey, junior in journalism, is the content editor for The Auburn Plainsman.
