By DAVID DELCORE
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BARRE, Vt. — Brent Coledo took to the Hokey Pokey and the Chicken Dance like a duck takes to water and by the time the Baby Shark Dance started blaring over a nearby speaker, his preschool classmates were sharing his enthusiasm.
Like the young students, “Walk, Run, Fun Day” was just warming up on the soccer field at Barre City Elementary and Middle School late Monday morning, even as co-principals Hayden Coon and Chris Hennessey were checking the weather and readying to take turns sitting in a dunk tank.
The temperature was 39 degrees and holding.
Fortunately for Coon and Hennessey, the water in the dunk tank was much warmer than that and if they didn’t have to sit in a gentle but chilly breeze while waiting to be dunked, it might actually have been enjoyable.
Judging from the smile on Coon’s face — he was up first and last on Monday — it sort of was anyway.
“They earned it,” he said of the students, who embraced the chance to dunk him with all the exuberance 4-year-old Coledo displayed while dancing the Hokey Pokey with middle school teacher Missy Wiggins surrounded by Nancy Benoit’s mostly idle class.
Coon wasn’t kidding, because the students who got the chance to try and dunk him, then Hennessey and then him again all raised more than their share of money as part of a popular, but unconventional fundraiser.
It’s one where the only thing that changes hands is money and virtually all of it is used to underwrite field trips and enrichment activities at the pre-K-8 school.
No candy, no candles, no plastic cards promising discounts and folks interested in gift-wrapping paper can go to the store and buy it. On the other hand, if they wouldn’t mind donating a dollar, or two, or 10 to students who are encouraged to solicit donations in the run up to Walk, Run, Fun Day, their generosity is both appreciated and celebrated.
Just ask Calley Rock, president of the local Parent-Teacher Organization, who said the time-tested Walk, Run, Fun format is essentially the same as it was when she joined the PTO three years ago.
The only difference?
The dunk tank.
Rock said that was added two years ago, providing students with an added incentive to raise money.
“Who doesn’t want to dunk their principal?” she said with a smile.
Not everyone got the opportunity, but more than a few of the school’s 800-plus students did on Monday after collecting more than $100 in contributions for a fundraiser that has never hit its out-sized $40,000 goal, but once came close — $38,000. The PTO fundraiser has routinely brought in more than $25,000 and surpassed $30,000 again last year.
Rock, who was among the PTO volunteers who was on hand for Monday’s rescheduled celebration said the vast majority of the money raised — more than 80% — underwrites field trips and other student-centered activities.
“It works and it’s fun,” she said, as the first waves of students arrived at the field where Wiggins warmed them up with 10 minutes of jazzercise and sent them walking or running around the field for another 10 minutes with the school’s Bulldog mascot.
A healthy snack came next and before heading back into school, classes paused by the dunk tank to watch students who raised enough money try to dunk one of the principals.
Every one of them did — some with legit pitches and others by triggering the device by hand.
Coon encouraged the latter for those who struggled to hit the target — keeping him out of the warm water.
“It’s cold up there,” he said, after preschooler Caleb Day dunked him for the first time and he remained in the water until the next class arrived.
Students didn’t have all the fun. A preschool para-educator pinch-pitched for Bradley Grenier, who raised more than enough money to dunk Coons, but had to miss school on Monday.
Postponed due to weather on Friday, the event’s regular disc jockey was replaced by PTO Treasurer Alina Schenkman, who had a more flexible schedule.
Schenkman was the woman behind the age-appropriate music that she played for students, including her own three children, Brooklyn, Sierra and Donnovan Carrien.
Meanwhile, Coon who spent the first hour in the dunk tank, turned it over to Hennessey for the second hour as middle school students cycled through. The two traded places again at noon and a day that began with Coon getting dunked by preschoolers ended with Coon getting dunked by preschoolers, some — Day, Logan Joseph Fontaine and Logan Carrien among them — with better aim than others.
Rock said it was way too soon to tell how much was raised this year because most of the donations are a mix of just submitted cash and checks that must be added to online contributions that total roughly $4,500.
“We’re hoping for another good year,” she said of what has become the PTO’s only annual fundraiser.
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