Donating to a Public School: Support Underfunded Schools

 Your donation could help reach more than one underfunded school, help thousands of children, and bridge the funding gap.

How Are Schools Funded?

Schools are primarily funded by the government through taxes and public funding. Local districts use property taxes to fund schools, and the economic condition or tax base of the area influences the amount of funding the schools receive. This discrepancy in funding creates funding gaps. 

Districts with a lower tax base suffer the consequences of poorly funded schools. Poorly funded schools rob millions of children of the opportunity to succeed due to limited access to necessary tools and resources.

Underfunded School Gap

Underfunded School Demographics

High-poverty schools receive significantly less money per child each year.

Impact of Underfunded Schools

• Lower Quality of Education

• Limited Extracurricular Activities

• Limited Advanced Courses

• Limited Educational Resources

How Much Money is Donated a Year?

On average one in three people will donate to a charity around the world and cash giving is around 500 billion dollars. In 2022 charitable giving decreased 3.4% and an estimated $499.33 billion was raised.

Benefits of Donating to Charity

Helpers High

An NIH study found that when people give to charities, the regions in the brain associated with pleasure, social connection, and trust are activated, releasing endorphins in the brain, a feeling known as “the helper’s high.”

Mental Health

It feels good to help others, studies show that acts of kindness like donating to a charity has a positive impact on happiness. Regular acts of kindness or practicing gratitude have been linked to improve mental health because it creates more interaction between the parts of the brain associated with processing social information and feeling pleasure. The brain produces more dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin which positively impact mood and disposition. 

Community

Finding and creating community is one of the most important parts of being human. Giving back to your community can help you feel more connected not just to other people but where you live and the world as a whole. 

 

Impact

Charitable donations are a great opportunity to make an impact on the lives of others. For example, a donation to Fitness Finders Foundation helps provide equipment, incentives, and support for young participants to learn about teamwork, goal-setting, self-confidence, overall health and wellbeing both mentally and physically through Mileage Club Program. 

When you give to charity, you can help positively impact the next generation. Charitable donations can provide a sense of purpose and fulfillment knowing that your actions are going to a good cause that is dear to your heart.

Tax-Deductible

Donations to charities and nonprofit organizations are often tax-deductible. Fitness Finders Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity, donations qualify for a tax deduction.

Why Donate to a Non-Profit?

Each year, individuals, bequests, corporations, and foundations donate billions of dollars to charities. When you donate to Fitness Finders Foundation, you’re helping to promote health and well-being among children in underfunded schools. 

How Can You Help?

Take a holistic approach to wellness through Fitness Finders Foundation. Founded by Dr. Charles K and his wife with a mission to enhance the health of people across the globe. In 1986 the Mileage Club walk/run program was created to offer knowledge, support, and tools to track physical activity. 

The Mileage Club Program has helped millions of children over the last 40 years to increase their physical fitness level, cognitive thinking and learning, manage behavior and emotions.

So what does Mileage Club have to do with underfunded schools and how can you help?

By donating to Fitness Finders Foundation Mileage Club GoFund.Me Fundraiser, you allow us to provide equipment, incentives, and support for children in underfunded schools. We can help students who are missing out on receiving proper education, brain breaks, fitness programs, etc. around the globe.

How Will Fitness Finders Foundation Use My Donation?

With your support and donations, Fitness Finders Foundation can provide children with equipment, incentives, and support to promote health and well-being among children in underfunded schools through its Mileage Club Program.

Why Mileage Club?

• Fight Obesity

• Encourage Fitness

• Enhance Focus & Concentration

• Improve Overall Cognitive Function

• Foster Positive Habits

• Teach Teamwork

• Set Goals

• Build Self-Confidence

How to Donate?

Join our Mileage Club Campaign and help contribute to our $50,000 goal which will directly benefit schools lacking resources for physical education. You can make a difference by donating today.

Build Better Behavior with Running

Perhaps you’ve had this happen to you as a kid, or maybe to one of your own children: after forgetting to complete your homework or throwing a little tantrum in the classroom, you were denied recess time. Instead of enjoying recess time, you were forced to sit quietly at your desk and complete schoolwork. 

It’s quite a common practice for teachers and administrators to deal with unruly behavior.  In fact, a 2006 study from the CDC confirmed that a whopping 81.5 percent of elementary schools allowed faculty to exclude students from recess as a form of punishment.1 This probably stems from the misconception that kids running around during recess rewards the student for improper behavior. 

However, this disciplinary method is counterproductive—and can cause even more difficulties in the classroom. To see fewer of these issues, get kids running. You read that right, and to be clear, we are not suggesting using running as a form of punishment. 

It makes sense. The more kids exercise and run, the more energy they burn—allowing them to reenter the classroom with a fresher, calmer mindset. In 2010, researchers conducted a study on elementary school children, comparing kids’ behavior in class on recess and non-recess days. Without a doubt, the students were more on task and less fidgety during the recess days. Jarrett and her colleagues also noted all the children with ADD benefited from the exercise. 2 

Additionally, a separate study in 2019 examined student behavior in the classroom after implementing a run club program. The results showed that classroom behavior significantly improved after participating in the run club—the results were a difference that was “not seen prior to the start of the program.” The researchers went on to conclude that physical activity can decrease disruptive activity in the classroom. 

This isn’t surprising. Our customers have repeated this since the 1990s. A Mileage Club during recess reduces playground hassles and allows kids to run off their energy so they can settle down and more effectively learn. 

Besides getting much-needed exercise and physical activity, run clubs also promote social interaction between peers, provide brain breaks after studying long and hard, and encourage kids to get creative and use their imaginations. But above all else, be reassured that a fun and engaging run club like Mileage Club also helps kids rein in their emotions and behavioral outbreaks. 

If you aren’t running yet, don’t you think your school could benefit to improve in this area? 

Top 10 Benefits of School Run Clubs

If you’re looking for a way to keep your kids engaged at school, participate in physical activity, and have fun while doing so, look no further than run clubs. They’re proven to work—just ask the 20,000+ schools around the world who offer run clubs. Kids aren’t the only ones who can benefit from a run club, either; it extends beyond to the teachers, volunteers, parents, and the community too! Though there are many, here are the top ten benefits/reasons to implement a school run club today.  

 

1.  Avoid Playground Hassles

Any recess monitor can attest that a variety of issues can stem from unstructured time spent on playgrounds. Children need close supervision during recess to avoid accidents and behavioral problems. After all, kids are just learning how to share, play nice, and get along with others. However, run clubs directly decrease playground troubles by releasing children’s energy and boosting moods. Though some incidents can’t be completely removed (kids will be kids!), run clubs help ensure recess stays a beneficial activity for children—and less of a hassle for teachers. 

2.  Reduce Childhood Obesity

Obesity can cause several health risks for children, both as children and later in life. Back in 2017–2018, a staggering total of 14.4 million children in the US were obese. To break it down even further, 13.4% of those children were 2-5 year-olds, while 20.3% were 6-11 year-olds. Run clubs help target and prevent obesity for elementary school children by encouraging regular exercise whenever possible—before class, after class, or during school through brain breaks, recess, and Physical Education.

Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic only worsened childhood obesity concerns. With fewer opportunities for regular exercise during this time, all BMI categories except underweight experienced significant weight rate increases. For severely obese children, they gained an average of 7.3 pounds over a 6-month period, compared to a weight gain of 2.7 pounds for healthy children. To reverse this negative trend, teachers are increasingly utilizing run clubs because of all the benefits. In fact, Fitness Finder’s Mileage Club® schools ran more than 7 million miles in the 2019–2020 school year despite the start of the pandemic. 

3.  Goal Setting

Run clubs allow children to track their achievements and earn rewards, which encourages them to strive for more. Mileage Club® uses an app called EZ Scan®; it tracks kids’ laps and collects data to keep them updated on how they’re doing. Most importantly, EZ Scan® allows teachers to set goals that are achievable for all students, whether they consider themselves to be active or not. This makes it easy for kids to recognize that they can do this and anything else they set their minds to, which is a great attribute to carry with them as they grow older. 

4.  Excitement/Engagement

When something is engaging and fun, kids will be more willing to participate—that’s what run clubs are all about! We want kids to enjoy exercise and have fun in this collaborative atmosphere, which is why school run clubs offer awards and incentives for achieving their goals.

"A study based in Canada from the 1990s found that adding rewards to their run club increased participation from children by 50%."

Recent studies have replicated that result.  For Mileage Club, we incentivize kids to participate by rewarding Toe Tokens—charms that come in a variety of colors and styles that kids love to display because of their hard work. Teachers that we’ve worked with agree that rewards keep kids motivated. They say that the kids are excited to run and can’t wait to do so!

5.  Reduce Sitting Time

Ever heard that sitting is the new smoking? While the phrase was originally coined to call out the sedentary lifestyle of adults through their desk jobs, driving, and TV watching, it’s applicable to children now as well. Between school and home, children are spending 60% of their day seated! Although seemingly harmless, sitting for extended periods of time can be quite harmful. For young girls who sit uninterrupted for just three hours, it can cause a major reduction in their vascular function (the body’s ability to carry blood through the veins and arteries). Because of these consequences, it’s important to get kids up and moving. 

6.  Brain Breaks

Run clubs provide children with the brain breaks necessary to divert their energy to a fun, stress-free activity, allowing them to reenter the classroom with their full attention. With shorter attention spans, kids need these short breaks to recoup back to the task at hand. In 2016, psychologist Karrie Godwin measured students’ attentiveness over the course of a class period. The results? Kids spent a quarter of the time distracted, meaning that shorter, bite-sized lessons with brain breaks in-between better help kids focus on their lessons and their teacher. Plus, the study promoted other benefits that brain breaks provide, such as decreased stress, an increase in productivity and brain function, and more opportunities for kids to socialize with each other. Run clubs achieve all three of these benefits, giving kids a healthy break with other students and placing them back into the classroom refreshed and ready to learn!  

7.  Learning Readiness

It’s undeniable that physical activity in a child’s day increases their ability to learn, and especially improves attention and memory. For example, one such study showed that physical fitness improved academic performance, and expressly called for schools to dedicate time in the day for gym and recess rather than scrapping those for more class time. As noted in the previous paragraph, physical activity only improves kids’ brain function by giving them an enjoyable outlet. Kids often bounce off the walls, so allowing them that time to burn off some extra energy means they can come back into the classroom with a better mindset. 

8. Habit Formation

Run clubs help children form healthy habits. In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear lays out a four-step pattern to create habits that improve your health: 

• Cue—the trigger for a behavior
• Craving—the motivation behind wanting to do the habit
• Response—the performed habit
• Reward—the end goal

Run clubs follow a similar framework by making regular physical activity part of a child’s routine and providing them with a tangible reward, like Toe Tokens®, at the end. With this in place, children are already well on their way to creating healthy habits that are easy to continue later in life! We highly recommend reading chapter three of Clear’s book, which contains more information on habit formation, to apply these principles to your own plans.

 

9. Goal-Oriented Social Activity 

Sharon Hoover, a co-director of the University of Maryland-based National Center for School Mental Health, made it clear that schools “need to invest now in the mental health and well-being of our kids in a broad and comprehensive way—not just for children with learning disabilities and diagnosed mental health conditions, but for all students.” Run clubs are a great way to provide beneficial tasks to your more social students. They can lean into their communication and empathy strengths while they walk and talk with their peers. They can still achieve their goals and encourage the other kids to do the same. Run clubs are also easily adjusted to practice social-distancing guidelines; kids can still gain the benefits while maintaining safety for themselves and others!

10. Be Everyone’s Favorite Teacher

Obviously! Kids love it.  You’ll be changing their lives—and the lives of their parents and the community—for the better. With this fun group dynamic, you’ll be everyone’s favorite teacher. 

The benefits of a run club will greatly impact students, teachers, and the community. Whether you’re starting from scratch or improving an active program, we have everything you need. to help your students be active and have fun. Get started by downloading our FREE Run Club Guide. In no time, your students will be more active, and everyone involved will have a blast. 

Download Your Free Guide

Mileage Club hits 250,000 miles!

Listen to Amy Nieuwenhuis (Teacher and Mileage Club Leader) tell us about her Mileage Club reaching a huge Milestone.

How a Visual Reminder of Their Accomplishments Keeps Her Students Motivated

An Interview with a Second Grade Teacher and Run Club Leader

Motivating Students to Do Their Very Best Every Day

An Interview with PE Instructors from Shady Hill Elementary in Florida 

Motivation and Habit Formation

I met a young middle school teacher a few months ago who wants to be successful. She has visions of her students coming back to visit her after they graduate high school and thanking her for the impact she made on their lives. Unfortunately, her day to day teaching experience makes her feel ineffective and frustrated. More and more of her students are disinterested, and sometimes even disobedient. To be a great instructor you need students who listen and desire to learn.

The solution to this problem is not new but requires planning, purpose, and some discipline. Successful students cultivate some or all of the habits that almost all successful people have: THEY EXERCISE, READ, SHOW UP (ATTENDANCE), AND EAT HEALTHY FOODS. The more habits students cultivate from this list, the more successful they will be.

A proven way to help create such “successful habits” is to create goals and then reward students when they attain the desired behavior. Teachers across the country find this works very well, and research bears this out.

That’s why we created the #1 selling award for run clubs, Toe Tokens® – colorful, plastic feet that kids love to collect.  Kids run miles and love it J, so they can get a Toe Token. 

Due to the success of Mileage Club®, and because of requests from teachers, we quickly followed up with awards for reading, attendance, and nutrition – which is also helping kids reach their goals.

 

Here is how it works:

1. Develop a plan to create routine activities around the desired goals for your classroom.
2. Layout the prescribed activities based on your goals and circumstances.
3. Following the idea of cue-habit-rewards made popular recently by Charles Duhigg (2012) and  now James Clear (2018), you then create:
1. A cue that tells the student when it is time to begin the habit/activity.
2. Clear instructions on what the activity consists of, without uncertainty.
3. An incentive plan to reward students at fixed intervals.
4. Design a system to measure progress.
5. Celebrate the goals met by distributing the awards earned.

Let’s look at how this works with Mileage Club (run club):

 

1.  Goal - my students will exercise more to increase their learning readiness and improve their health and mood.

 

• Create a program that allows every student to participate. 
• Allow each student to feel accomplished.

 

2.  Prescribed Activity – Start a running/walking club (Mileage Club).

• Create a course/track for the Mileage Club. (Our example will be a ¼ mile course around the playground.)
• Students run two times a week during recess (with an optional third day on Friday).
• Provide 20 minutes for each run.

3.  Cue - the recess bell.

• On Tuesday and Thursday, the students move around the track at whatever pace they can.
• Music can be played during this time to create a fun atmosphere.
• Incentive plan- every 5 miles (20 laps), a student earns a Toe Token.

 4.  Measuring – laps and total mileage will be tracked with the EZ Scan tracking software. 

5.  Celebration – awards day every Friday.

• On Friday, at lunch, all students who earned awards receive their Toe Tokens.
• A lanyard is also provided with the first Toe Token so a student can display their awards.
• Students who desire to run more may do so on Friday.

This goal/reward method has worked for decades across the country for run clubs, as well as reading plans, and behavior programs. Such programs are easy to create and implement. And, they help students create those necessary “successful habits.”

Stop being frustrated with your current efforts and start making a massive difference in your students' lives - just like you dreamed about in college - with Mileage Club, EZ Scan, and Toe Tokens! Fitness Finders has decades of experience to help you begin today.

References:

The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg from 2012

Atomic Habits by James Clear from 2018

Meeting SHAPE Distance Learning Guidelines

We have selected a handful of action points from the SHAPE Distance Learning Guidelines on the left and show how Fitness Finders can help you meet them on the right.

Curriculum

“Continually assess and revise online course to keep up with trends, technology, and content.”

Fitness Finders does this for you! Our EZ Scan® app automatically updates at no extra cost and works with the latest devices. Content changes are based on current trends in physical education and feedback from users in all 50 states.

“Address all state and/or national physical education content standards, including any other required standards (Common Core, ELA, Technology, etc.).”

Getting the recommended 60 minutes of activity a day is no problem with Mileage Club®. Mileage Club works before, during, or after school. It can be done outdoors, indoors, and even at home. And it’s an easy, low-cost way to get and keep kids moving. Mileage Club is flexible, accommodates all students, and kids love the rewards. It is the best way to meet multiple state and national standards for physical activity.

Learning Environment

“Get parents involved with their child’s learning.”	Parents can be involved in Mileage Club in many ways! From simple encouragement as children reach their goals to walking laps with them. Parents can be there for their kids every step of the way! With EZ Scan, teachers can share their child’s individual reports with parents to keep them up-to-date on progress. For greater involvement, teachers can send the EZ Scan Activity Recording Sheet & Instruction or a QR Card with instructions home to parents.
“Allow for student choice so students can choose where, when, and how to be physically active.”	Flexibility is a critical component of Mileage Club® and EZ Scan®. Complete laps any time of day - anywhere! Set a course anywhere you’d like and record laps, reps, and minutes of activity – anyway, they can be done! A great resource we offer is our EZ Scan Activity Recording Sheet & Instruction has the equivalency chart with the purpose of allowing the choice of exercise by converting any activity to minutes of walking/running. Available online or by mail.
“Balance screen time and physical activity time.”	With EZ Scan®, you can access reports that give time stamps and quickly let you see the amount of time spent walking/running!

Assessment

“Utilize technology to verify participation and support learning gains in physical activity to meet the CDC physical activity recommendations of 60 minutes of moderate- to vigorous physical activity per day.”

As mentioned before - EZ Scan® will do this job for you! Just have the students scan their laps or minutes of activity. You’ll be able to generate reports with all of the information needed to know if students are getting their 60 minutes of exercise per day.

Standards-Based Instruction

“Students compare and contrast data collected (e.g., heart rate, video of the performance) against criteria and/or previous analyses.”	EZ Scan reports can be generated in any time frame that you’d like. So, comparing results from day-to-day or week-to-week will be a breeze. As an account administrator, you will just need to send them the data, such as the individual student report and timed run reports. Both of these would allow students to compare and contrast their progress over time.
“Students generate data (e.g., heart rate, number of sit-ups, etc.) by performing health-related physical fitness assessments.”	Let EZ Scan make your timed run very EZ. Students simply scan a QR card with each completed lap. The report details the # of laps, total time, and splits for each student.
“Students choose, present and/or discuss relevant assessments to measure a physical fitness component (e.g., muscular strength, agility, coordination)”	EZ Scan reports provide relevant metrics related to distance and frequency as well as progress overtime. Also, equivalencies give a great framework for time-based, calorie-based, and distance-based comparisons.

More Takeaways!

“One of the four essential components of physical education is assessment — the gathering of evidence about student achievement in all areas of instruction to make inferences about student progress.”	An assessment has never been such a quick task! The reports generated from an EZ Scan account can give you all the data you need to present to students, parents, and administration showing off how much they have accomplished in your run club in a given timeframe. One great example is the Timed Run reports.
“Activity tracker - Activity trackers are wearable devices or computer applications that record daily physical activity along with other data relating to fitness or health, such as heart rate, the number of steps taken, or even calories burned.”	EZ Scan is the #1 lap tracking software on the market. Not to mention it is affordable – only $149.95/year and handles up to 1,500 students! Plus, if you ever need help, we offer free tech support Mon-Fri during our office hours.
“Verification of learning is perhaps one of the teachers’ biggest concerns with OLPE (Daum & Buscher, 2012; Trent 2016), while students struggle with the meaningfulness and challenge of assignments. Creators of online courses need to pay special attention to meaningful assessments that challenge students in real-world contexts.”	Verify that your students are learning by allowing them to complete the same exercises at school as they will at home. This can quickly be done with Mileage Club and equivalencies because, as we’ve mentioned, they can be completed anytime, anywhere, to give your students real-world context through independent work! When you choose to start a Mileage Club, it will be the last curriculum choice you have to make for incorporating structured physical activity. Mileage Club is so simple that you will only need to teach the lesson once. After that, students know to get their QR Scan card and scan as they complete laps to earn their awards. No more worrying about coming up with new lesson plans on the fly.
“All students must be afforded the same opportunities to participate in public school programs. The students must be provided accommodations and modifications as necessary, based on the individualized education program (IEP) team decisions.”	Mileage Club can be done by anyone, anywhere, any time of the day and our equivalencies make this even more true as they can turn any activity into minutes walked/ran, such as pushups if they are unable to go outside. You can accommodate all interests and abilities.
“Teachers must make more of a concerted effort to connect when in a distance learning environment. Students need to feel like part of their school community and that they are cared for to learn. Develop strategies to connect with students if your school/ district will not be facilitating online learning or if students will not be able to meet online due to limited accessibility at home (e.g., create assignments focused on getting to know each other, facilitate pen pals).”	Connect with students by achieving personal and group goals together! Start a Mileage Club program and keep track of their awards and data with EZ Scan. You can do this for one school, or connect your entire district! Plus, they will be able to participate in the same program from home or at school. When they have reached their goals, be sure to give them a physical reminder of their success, such as a Toe Token and a necklace to display it on.

Bonus Thoughts from Fitness Finders

“Do an inventory of your current curriculum and determine which lessons or activities can be repurposed as at-home work or for online use (depending on students’ access to technology). There may be lessons or activities within your current curriculum that can easily be adapted for students to complete at home or online.”	Mileage Club seamlessly adapts to a home learning setting. With EZ Scan, you just make sure your students have their QR card and can log in, and they can get moving. Parents are also able to help out by becoming scanners and supervisors. As an administrator, you can securely give parents access to EZ Scan to allow students to use the same software to complete laps like they would at school.
“Make sure expectations are realistic for students, especially for younger students if they require assistance from an adult to complete assignments. Consider the home dynamics of your students as referenced earlier in the section on Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility.”	Setting realistic expectations to be met from home can be a tough job. However, EZ Scan and Mileage club make this easy! Mileage Club can be done by anyone at any time. If they’re unable to complete laps, just have them use the equivalency chart. If they can complete laps, have them use EZ Scan to record their data. If they can’t use EZ Scan, just have them send you a recording sheet that you can manually enter into the system. Because EZ Scan is so simple and because we have you covered for all situations, you can expect all of your students to get the proper amount of activity at home without making it unrealistic.
“Can special events or activities still be done remotely (e.g., At-Home Family Field Day)?”	Mileage Club creates consistency because it can be done both at school and at home. So, if the time comes where you have a shift to online learning, your curriculum is already setup, and the students know exactly what to do! The program can be done at the same time each day, and completing laps for mileage is a consistent activity by nature as each can be done the same way each time. Special events and activities can still be done at home, just like at school. Host field days, award days, jog-a-thons, or even just daily sessions remotely with ease. This allows you to maintain critical ESL components of teaching and will give your students structured activities that can be done when they are away from school. This is also true even if some students are learning from home while some are in class.