As more families with young children move into Great Park Neighborhoods, enrollment grows at Cadence Park School – a state-of-the-art K-8 elementary school that opened in Irvine in 2018.
The increase in students is creating a heightened demand for technology. Chromebooks are the primary tool students use to facilitate learning in and out of the classroom. The tablets proved particularly useful this spring when students were adjusting to distance learning and borrowing Chromebooks from the school.
To ensure each student has access to a Chromebook for the upcoming 2020-21 school year, Cadence Park School’s PTSA hosted its annual Jog-A-Thon fundraiser on May 29. As fate would have it, the event served as the last signature event for the school year. Due to the pandemic, the fundraiser pivoted from a campus-based activity involving students during the school day slated for late March to a family-based affair open to the surrounding community in late May.
With support from participants and sponsoring companies such as FivePoint, Cadence Park School raised nearly $28,000 – enough to provide three additional carts containing 36 Chromebooks each to accommodate the growing student base.
A few days before the fundraiser, students picked up Great Park Neighborhoods bags that contained Jog-A-Thon T-shirts, 2020 yearbooks, and any items left behind from their classrooms. The gift bags served as a reminder for the Jog-A-Thon, which proved to be fun challenge for third grader Elijah.
“Participating in the Jog-A-Thon was amazing, spectacular, awesome, fun and very cool,” said Elijah, a Cadence Park School third grader.