EZ Scan for Fun Runs - Fund Run Program

 Trade in the old clipboard and pencil for the EZ Scan App to track, time, and report your data for your fun runs.

What is a Fun Run?

A fun run can raise money for your school through sponsors and parents. Sponsors will donate a certain amount of money for each lap or specified distance completed by the participant. Participants can walk or run completing as many laps as they can to raise money. This money can be used to pay for school needs including next year’s EZ Scan and Mileage Club costs.

Types of Fun Runs

Fun Runs are not just a great way to raise money, but they are about community and creativity too! Themed fun runs can be a great way to encourage kids to participate.

Fun runs can be seasonal embracing the holidays, Thanksgiving Turkey Trot, Christmas or Hanukkah Run, Halloween, or Running into the New Year's Run.

Create a Themed Run to engage everyone like having a glow-in-the-dark run, colored run, bubble party run, superhero run, etc. Fitness Finders has a great selection of themed awards to coincide with your creative ideas and inspire kids to be active.

Have a run based around a special event like supporting a charity, kids against teachers or parents, including obstacles or a scavenger hunt, etc.

How to Have a Fun Run?

1. Decide when and where your fun run will be and what you’re raising money for.

2. Create a form to send home to ask for pledges, depending on how many laps or miles students will run within a certain time frame. Make sure they’re realistic goals!

3. Create a fund program using EZ Scan to accurately track your laps.

4. Host your fun run.

5. Print out reports to show your sponsors exactly how many laps or miles were completed and let them know how well your students did.

6. Make sure you thank your sponsors!

It’s as simple as that. Your students will love the challenge and your sponsors will appreciate knowing their pledges were fulfilled. Let us know how your fund run goes!

Use EZ Scan to Track and Collect Money for a Fun Run

Create a fund-run program within EZ Scan. To ensure your counts are accurate, the program needs to be separate from any other program you are running. On the day of the run have your students run and scan like normal, but be sure you're using the fund run program. When the run is complete EZ Scan will quickly and accurately count the laps your students finish, ensuring the pledges are complete.

Check out how Atlanta Track Club uses EZ Scan.

How Atlanta Track Club Maximizes Their Community Reach

Run clubs are advantageous for everyone involved—parents, teachers, kids, etc. 

There are so many benefits:

• Goal setting
• Habit formation 
• Increased physical activity 
• Fun

And these are just a few of them! Starting a run club because of these benefits is a no-brainer, but if you find yourself without the right tools, it can get a bit tricky – especially if you’re organizing run clubs for a whole community of people.

One way to organize your run club that makes all this much simpler is to use technology to manage, report, and track the data from your club. Our EZ Scan® app is the best tool that makes this easier at any given site or even across a whole community. EZ Scan helps you step back and see the bigger picture.

The EZ Scan “Community” feature provides a place for community leaders to track progress across any number of run club sites (be that schools, Y’s, clubs, or community events). Tracking progress helps ensure that all those parents, teachers, and kids involved are successful with their goals.

One example of a successful EZ Scan community using this feature is the Atlanta Track Club. Originally, Atlanta Track Club started with just 7 locations in the greater Atlanta area, but in a few short years, that number has worked up to 56! Keeping track of mileage for that many locations could be difficult, but with the EZ Scan app, tracking the entire Atlanta Track Club’s community miles is as simple as clicking a button. During the 2021-2022 school year, Atlanta Track Club recorded over 20,000 miles, averaging a whopping 20 miles per child across each of their locations.

As mentioned before, EZ Scan also provides progress reports for individual schools or locations. One such example is Kilometer Kids, the free running program for K-8 kids. Though Kilometer Kids is a part of the Atlanta Track Club community, each Kilometer Kids location individually tracks participants’ laps and helps them set their own goals. They were able to see if each child in their program ran 26.2 miles—the length of a marathon—over their 10-week season.

“Using Fitness Finders’ EZ Scan mileage tracking technology has been a great asset,” said Madison Hafitz, the program manager for Atlanta Track Club’s Kilometer Kids. “EZ Scan allows our coaches to easily track mileage so they can be sure to hand out mileage-based incentives to the kids when they reach their 5K, 10K, half-marathon, and full-marathon goals.”
 

Build Better Behavior with Running: Benefit From Having a Running Program

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? 

10 Powerful Benefits of Starting a School Run Club

Discover the top 10 benefits of school run clubs — from boosting student focus and fitness to building community spirit and lifelong healthy habits.

Why Every School Should Start a Run Club

If you’re looking for a way to keep your kids engaged, active, and excited to learn, school-run clubs are one of the most effective, affordable, and fun solutions.

More than 20,000 schools worldwide participate in programs like Mileage Club, helping millions of students build healthy habits, improve learning readiness, and develop confidence through movement. 

But it's not just kids who benefit - teachers, parents, and communities all share in the rewards. Here are the top 10 reasons to start (or strengthen) your school's running club this year.

 10 Reasons to Strengthen Your Schools Run Club

1.  Reduce Playground Conflicts

Recess can sometimes lead to conflicts or accidents when kids have too much unstructured time. Running clubs provide a positive structure that helps kids release energy, boost their mood, and reduce behavioral issues.

Teachers report fewer playground hassles and a more focused, positive recess experience when Mileage Club or other run clubs are active.

2.  Combat Childhood Obesity

Childhood obesity remains a serious concern in 2025, with nearly 1 in 5 US children classified as obese (CDC). This can lead to 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. 

Regular, enjoyable exercise is key - and run clubs make it happen. Even short, daily runs or walk during recess or PE can dramatically improve cardiovascular health and mood, help target and prevent obesity for elementary school children.

In the 2019 - 2020 school year, Mileage Club students collectively ran over 7 million miles!

The COVID-19 pandemic increased childhood obesity concerns. With fewer opportunities for regular exercise during this time, all BMI categories except underweight children experienced significant weight gain. Severely obese children gained an average of 7.3 pounds over 6 months, compared to a weight gain of 2.7 pounds for healthy children. 

To reverse this negative trend, teachers are increasingly utilizing running clubs because of all the benefits. 

3.  Build Goal-Setting Skills

Run clubs teach kids how to set, track, and achieve goals. With EZ Scan, Fitness Finder's easy-to-use tracking app, students can instantly see their progress while teachers gather valuable performance data.

As children reach mileage milestones, they build confidence - and learn that perseverance pays off. 

4.  Make Exercise Fun and Engaging

Kids love rewards and recognition! When something is engaging and fun, kids will be more willing to participate—that’s what run clubs are all about! Programs like Mileage Club use colorful Toe Tokens and creative incentives to keep students motivated. 

Studies show that when rewards are introduced, participation can increase by 50% - and teachers agree: students look forward to every running day.

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

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 applies to children now as well. Between school, homework, and screens, children now spend over 60% of their day sitting. That inactivity impacts posture, energy, and even heart health. 

 Although seemingly harmless, sitting for extended periods 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. 

 

Run clubs give students a reason to get up and move - improving blood flow, mood, and energy levels while combating the effects of long sitting periods.

6.  Boost Focus with Brain Breaks

With shorter attention spans, kids need movement to focus. Short "brain breaks" that involve running or walking help reset their attention span to recoup back to the task at hand and improve learning.

In 2016, psychologist Karrie Godwin measured students’ attentiveness throughout 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. 

A 2023 study in Frontiers in Psychology confirmed that even 15 minutes of moderate exercise improves classroom concentration and reduces stress levels.

Run clubs provide the perfect, structured opportunity for those movement breaks. 

 

7.  Improve Learning Readiness

Movement fuels the brain. Physical activity has been shown to increase memory retention and cognitive performance, making run clubs a powerful educational tool. 

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. 

Instead of losing class time, schools gain engaged, alert students ready to learn after their laps. 

8. Create Lifelong Healthy Habits

Run clubs help children internalize the joy of regular exercise. Using habit-building principles from James Clear's Atomic Habits, programs like Mileage Club pair clear cues, motivation, routine activity, and rewards - forming habits that can last a lifetime. 

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. Support Mental Health and Social Skills 

According to the National Center for School Mental Health, physical activity is one of the best ways to promote well-being and reduce anxiety in students.

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 broadly and comprehensively—not just for children with learning disabilities and diagnosed mental health conditions, but for all students.” 

Run clubs provide a goal-oriented social outlet, encouraging teamwork, empathy, and self-confidence - without the pressure of competition. Kids cheer each other on, building connection through movement.

Run clubs are also easily adjusted to practice social-distancing guidelines; kids can still gain benefits while maintaining safety for themselves and others!

10. Be the Teacher They'll Always Remember

Obviously! Kids love it.  Running clubs don't just get kids moving - they help you make a lasting impact. When students associate school with fun, health, and encouragement, they thrive. 

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. 

Get Started: Download Your Free Run Club Guide

The benefits of a run club will greatly impact students, teachers, and the community. Whether you’re starting from scratch or enhancing an existing program, Fitness Finders has everything you need from free planning resources to motivational awards. 

Download the FREE Run Club Guide. In just a few weeks, your students will be more active, confident, and excited to move! 

Download Your Free Guide

How Teachers Can Build Student Success Habits with Mileage Club®, EZ Scan®, and Toe Tokens®

Every teacher dreams of inspiring their students - of seeing them return years later to say, "You made a difference in my life." But for many educators, day-to-day challenges like low engagement, inconsistent participation, and waning motivation can make that dream feel far away.

The good news? You can help students rediscover their excitement for learning by building simple, positive habits that lead to lifelong success. Programs like Mileage Club, EZ Scan, and Toe Tokens make that process not only achievable - but fun!

Why Student Habits Matter More Than Ever

Research shows that successful students often share a few core habits:

• They exercise regularly
• They show up and stay consistent
• They make healthy choices
• They read and pursue personal goals

When teachers intentionally build these behaviors into the classroom routine, students thrive - both academically and emotionally.

Fitness Finders programs are designed to help schools nurture these "success habits" through goal-setting, recognition, and movement-based motivation.

How Positive Reinforcement Creates Lifelong Habits

Building strong habits starts with a clear goal, a consistent cue, and a meaningful reward - a concept popularized by Charles Duhigg (The Power of Habit, 2012) and James Clear (Atomic Habits, 2018). 

This approach works beautifully in classrooms because it helps students connect daily actions with positive results. When teachers combine structure and celebration, the results can be transformative.

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, 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.

The Fitness Finder Formula: Mileage Club, EZ Scan, & Toe Tokens

At Fitness Finders, we've seen this formula succeed for decades - from physical activity to reading and attendance programs. Here's how to make it work in your school.

1. Set the Goal

Help students focus on one key area of improvement.

Example: "My students will exercise more to increase learning readiness and improve mood."

When you establish this as a classroom or school-wide focus, students start associating physical activity with academic success.

2. Plan the Activity

Create a running or walking program using Mileage Club - an easy-to-implement system where every student can participate at their own pace. 

Example:

• Create a quarter-mile track around the playground.
• Schedule two weekly Mileage Club days during recess, with an optional Friday bonus day.
• Give students 20 minutes to walk, jog, or run while having fun and listening to music. 

3. Cue the Habit

Use the recess bell or a consistent time of day to signal "it's time for Mileage Club." Consistency helps turn participation into habit.

Students move around the track, track their laps with EZ Scan, and celebrate every milestone. Every 5 miles (20 laps), students earn a Toe Token - a colorful, collectible charm they wear proudly on a lanyard.

4. Measure Progress

EZ Scan makes tracking simple and automatic. Teachers can instantly see student mileage, participation, and growth over time - no manual counting or guessing needed.

This data can also be used for grading, progress reports, and motivational displays that celebrate student effort.

5. Celebrate the Wins

Every Friday, hold a short awards celebration. Students who earn new Toe Tokens receive them during lunch or recess, reinforcing their progress and keeping motivation high.

These celebrations don't just reward physical activity - they build community, confidence, and joy.

The Result: Students Who Build Success Habits for Life

This goal-and-reward system has been proven to help students create the very habits that make them successful - not just in school, but throughout life.

When you implement Mileage Club, EZ Scan, and Toe Tokens, you're doing more than promoting fitness. You're:

• Boosting classroom focus and behavior
• Encouraging perseverance and self-discipline
• Building a culture of achievement and positivity

As one teacher told us, "Mileage Club doesn't just get kids moving - it gets them believing in themselves."

Get Started Today

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