Students at Ferndale Woods Elementary School have hopped, skipped and jumped their way to being one of the top three fundraising schools in the province for this year’s Jump Rope For Heart event in support of the Heart and Stroke Foundation.
The south-end Barrie school, which boasts 600 students and 64 staff members, raised just shy of $15,000 for the event, which celebrated its 40th anniversary this year.
That achievement also positioned the local school in the top five in all of Canada, noted co-organizer and teacher Jennifer Peltoniemi.
“We are so excited for our kids and we are pumped,” she told BarrieToday.
The school hosted its kick off event in May and initially set a goal of $5,000. It only took two weeks before students to not only meet but exceed that goal..
“We thought it was quite a large goal, especially (since) we have 600 students, and after COVID and everything,” Peltoniemi said. “We decided to up it to $6,000, but before we could even tell them what the new goal was they had already reached it.”
To date, the school has raised $14,733 through their fundraising efforts, however that number could continue to increase as donations will be accepted until June 8.
As a way to motivate students, Peltoniemi said they created various school-based rewards for each $1,000 raised.
“Our $1,000 level was two of our staff members were going to wear a wig and do a big dance as the students were arriving in the morning,” she said, adding students were particularly motivated to reach the $4,000 goal because it meant that the principal, vice principal and one of the intermediate teachers would get a pie to the face and “silly stringed” by students.
“They were really pumped about that one,” Peltoniemi said with a laugh. “When we started to snowball, our principal said anything above $10,000 would earn a school-wide pizza day. … They blew that out of the water.”
Before the official event, which took place June 2, students had the chance to watch visual announcements, explained Peltoniemi, which included quotes from staff members about why they were jumping and why the event was important to them.
For Peltoniemi, her “why” hits especially close to home.
“My husband had a stroke at 34 years old. He ended up having to have heart surgery to close a hole in his heart that caused the stroke,” she said, adding the event is also close to the heart of her co-chair Tara McKernin, who lost her father to a heart attack when she was only 19.
As other staff members began to share their stories, students became more connected to the cause, Peltoniemi acknowledged, adding it was no longer an abstract idea for the kids, but rather an important event that helped support people they knew.
“I also teach the special needs class… and some of the students in that class have heart conditions, so that really also motivated students because they had peers they now knew were accessing the results of all the fundraising.”
This is the first time the school has hosted the popular event since before the pandemic and seeing the school community come together for such a great cause was exciting, said Peltoniemi.
“It was an excellent way to finish our year after two difficult years of being shut down, of having the kids isolated from one another to protect them,” she said. “We have House Colours, so they got to participate within their House Colour groups and it was mixed from (kindergarten) to Grade 8.”
The Grade 8 leaders had the opportunity to step up and run the various stations throughout the day, she added.
“It was amazing to watch them shine because a lot of their leadership opportunities haven’t been available for the last little while. Walking through the halls, you could feel and hear the excitement,” she said. “We are just so proud of their character. Their passion, their determination, their motivation, their energy and their spirit just came out to shine for this event.
"They were determined to make a difference and have fun doing it.”
