Forest Park’s Olympian

So I was speaking at an assembly at Forest Park Elementary, talking up a new program we’ve promoted in a few schools, The Quest for the Golden Sneaker. After the assembly, I was approached by a particularly wonderful kindergarten teacher, Joni Huntley. She offered to let us use an actual Golden Sneaker Award that she had received in her past career as an Olympic Champion! Not only did I not know that Joni was an Olympian, I had no idea that there are other Golden Sneaker Awards, gold spray-painted shoes mounted on 2×4 wood pieces, floating around out there. Sure enough, the following week, she brought the Golden Sneaker Award to school and we displayed it at our table on Walk and Bike Day to promote The Quest for the Golden Sneaker. The students and parents got a kick out of it (no pun intended, well, maybe just a little intended).

The Quest for the Golden Sneaker is an activity in which any school can participate.

1st run the idea by your principal/teacher, 2nd draw a big sneaker on a piece of poster board or butcher paper, 3rd go get some gold star stickers (or any stickers that you like), and 4th hand out stickers to walkers and bikers at your school and have them place the stickers on the shoe. The goal is to fill the whole shoe with gold stickers by the end of the school year. I definitely recommend getting approval from the administration to hang the poster in a central location so that the students can see their progress. I have also seen this done with a hiking boot, with the focus on walking the same distance as the Pacific Crest Trail. The possibilities are endless!