I had the pleasure of spending 3 hours with six of my students this morning as we worked a water stop for the Howard County Striders Metric Marathon. The students at our school need a sliding number of hours of community service each year. However, the 5th grade students do not have to obtain their hours outside of school. All six of their hours are easily obtained through in-school service. Nonetheless, they gave up Sunday morning sleeping in (or early church only to go in the afternoon) to come out in the cold to pass out what seemed like endless cups of gatorade and water to hundreds of thirsty runners. They quickly learned the routine of how to fill and hold out cups and showed hours of enthusiasm with shouts and cheers.
(I must also give a quick shout out to the adult volunteers as well, some of whom were parents of the kids who jumped right in!)
These XC runners and their friends really showed a delight in their service. They stood the whole time and had very little time to goof off. And yet they still all left smiling and remarking how they had fun! Yes, I will credit them 3 hours of service, but they did not really care, they just enjoyed the morning. I can only hope and pray that this selfless joy for service grows in their hearts as they grow older. They are truly an example of what we hope for in our students.
Yet again, I say: Awesome.
Teach2Connect 
Awesome! What a great way to introduce your running team to the world of marathons!