BY ALEXIA LITTLETON
FOR THE OBSERVER
AUBURN — Drake Middle School held its Eighth Annual Book It For Drake 5k and Fun Run, on Saturday, April 11, at Town Creek Park, in effort to raise funds for educational benefits within the community.
Last year, Drake Middle School welcomed over 400 participants. The proceeds from the race directly support every student at the school. Organizers also reached out to businesses to sponsor this impactful event.
The sponsorships for this event offers opportunities for local businesses to support the community while promoting their brand. This event works to raise funds to benefit local students and teachers by supporting the purchase new books, technology and professional development for teachers.
Cate Sagastegui, a sixth grade teacher at Drake Middle School, said the event usually has a lot of support and participation each year.
“This is our eighth year having this 5k and Fun Run, and it’s a huge fundraiser for our school,” she said. “I think it’s a good community event because when kids sign up, their parents, family members or friends usually sign up too. We usually have a really good turnout of around 400 to 500 people register. It’s always a fun morning.”
Sagastegui says it means a lot for our students to see that kind of support. Organizers have continued to see steady growth over the years, and this year was no different. She added local businesses also benefit from this event.
“Our local businesses and sponsors really show up for us, and we couldn’t do this at the level we do without them,” she said. “Registration numbers were strong, and we continue to feel a lot of support from both our students and their families as well as the Auburn community.”
This event takes a lot of planning and preparation each year. Sagastegui said it typically tends to draw in more proceeds and supporters as the years go on. Although these increasing numbers can be challenging for such a small community, Drake Middle School knows how to get the job done.
Sagastegui said there are expectations and small challenges that can stem from this event as sign-ups continue to increase.
“There are a lot of people, so we have multiple parking lots, but parking can be a little bit challenging if you don’t plan in advance,” she said.
As far as registration and run times, Sagastegui said organizers try to make this event as simple and organized as possible, for the community to enjoy as a whole.
“AORTA, which stands for Auburn-Opelika Track Running Association, helps us run and organize the race for us,” she said. “So it’s very well organized.”
Sagastegui says that the proceeds go directly back to teachers’ classrooms, to purchase things like books, technology and other classroom materials that make learning fun. The goal of this fundraiser is to ultimately provide more for the educational system within the community.
“This is a fundraiser that directly impacts our school and teachers get to use this money for their classrooms to make learning more fun,” she said. “There have been multiple purchases and exciting things happening at Drake because of this fundraiser. Specifically, the books purchased.”
Sagastegui also said this educational impact can lead to better learning opportunities for Drake students and advance them toward a higher level of success.
“There’s been thousands of dollars worth of books purchased over the years and kids read more when they have more options, and [those options are provided through] funding,” she said. “So extra funding [helps with] classroom materials that we wouldn’t be able to purchase without this event, making teaching and learning fun at Drake.”
Sagastegui said this fundraiser takes a team to truly make it a successful event for the community. The run directly aids in the improvement of school incentives, allowing students to reach for the stars in every way possible at Drake. Drake Middle School Principal Sarah Armstrong shares the importance behind this fundraiser to teachers and staff at Drake.
“When teachers dream big and have creative ideas or say ‘I sure wish I could do [a certain thing] in my classroom or for my students,’ Book It Funds allow us to have flexible funds to say ‘Yes, here’s the support to dream big, be creative and create engaging experiences for students,’” she said.
Sagastegui also shared how other teachers, as well as herself, use the money raised from this event in the classroom specifically. She said she wants every student to have the freedom to choose how they learn and how much they are capable of learning in the classroom.
“We wanted students to be able to have choice in what they read,” said Sagastegui. “In my classroom specifically, there are hundreds of copies of around three to five copies of book sets, so that I can offer book club options to my students. Other teachers have purchased things like equipment for podcasts. There have been different math extension activities purchased from math classrooms, and the money is directly used in the classrooms pretty quickly after it is raised.”
Sagastegui said many teachers at Drake Middle School want the students to be the top priority in the proceeds made from this event.
“Teachers are able to request funds to do creative, extension learning with out of the box type of activities for their classroom,” she said. “This is where the funding comes from and it’s called Book It for Drake, but it used to be called Book It for Books. Because it initially was used for books, we have book clubs at Drake and we have a ton of books.”
Fundraisers like these are stepping stones to building the community as a whole to something more than just educational advancements as well. Sagastegui said that this event is not just important to the community, but also to the ones running and taking care of the event objectives.
“We’ve always had people from businesses in both Auburn and Opelika that have been very generous to donate and sponsor,” she said. “People look forward to this event and we’ve gotten pretty positive feedback, with a lot of recurring sponsors that we are very thankful for.”
Sagastegui shared background and true meaning behind this idea and event that originated nearly eight years ago. Although a lot has changed, she said organizers are continuing to push for positive and effective reconstruction rather than maintaining a motionless transformation.
“It’s great and it’s just been a really fun event,” Sagastegui said. “Eight years ago, we were like, ‘how can we raise money for books?’ We had no idea. Maybe we can just try this 5k and our goal was to have 100 people sign up and then like 500 people signed up. We were like, ‘wow,’ this is really great. We have to keep doing this, and it has far exceeded our expectations.”
She said the impact from this event continues to grow as more members get involved.
“This is not run by parents, teachers do all of the work for this, so it’s a lot of fun and some teachers will come out and run,” said Sagastegui. “The other teachers are working, and so it’s a fun way for families and the school setting to kind of mingle a little bit.”
Sagastegui said she loves the unification aspect of the run and how it brings people closer together. She shared some of her favorite moments from this year’s run and why it mattered so much to her.
“My favorite part is always seeing everyone together in one place,” she said. “You have students, families, teachers and community members all showing up for the same reason. It’s just a really positive, fun atmosphere. This year’s turnout was a big highlight for us. The energy at the event was great, and everything ran really smoothly thanks to our volunteers and sponsors.”
Sagastegui said she hopes that this event can turn into something consistent and cooperative for Drake as it continues to grow and exceed expectations, in the years to come. With the help of the community, local businesses and staff at Drake, many students will continue to have an abundance of opportunities and goals to reach for.
The future of education in the Auburn community is continuing to advance and improve, thanks to its circle of support and devotion for a better chance for its students. Sagastegui said she wants to make every year better and better for the good of the community.
“We’d love to keep growing the event while keeping that same sense of community,” she said. “The goal is to build on what we’ve done this year and make it even better.”
