The Help for Haiti Jog-A-Thon took place on the Northwest High School Track March 12 from 3 to 5 p.m. Quince Orchard’s Students Taking Action in Darfur Now club co-hosted the event with Students for Change in Darfur and the Northwest outdoor track team. Doctors Without Borders will receive all of the donated money.

“We’re bringing together people from all around Montgomery County in order to help those affected by the earthquake in Haiti, and showing everyone that high school students do care,” said Anna Sebastian, president of Northwest’s Students for Change in Darfur club, prior to the event.

The club has organized a Jog-A-Thon for the past two years to raise money for genocide prevention, but felt that the proceeds should go to Haiti this year.

“Even though we’re primarily an anti-genocide group, we wanted to stress the importance of working as an international community during such a devastating time,” she says.

Their goal was to raise $10,000, and in the past two years they raised over $15,000 total. They will calculate the final amount from this year’s Jog-A-Thon later this week.

Participants donated money in two ways: they either attended the event and donated money at the race itself, or they asked people to pledge a certain amount of money per lap prior to the race. ‘Save Darfur’ t-shirts were sold at the event for $5, in addition to Haiti wristbands, bumper stickers and key chains.

Around 200 people usually attend the event, says Quince Orchard’s STAND Club president Amy Frieder. She predicted an even bigger turnout this year because of the additional support from Poolesville High School’s contributions, but due to the rain on Friday the same amount of people attended as in past years.

Junior track and field captain Danielle Newsham says the Jog-A-Thon has inspired her to possibly create an event for her team.

“Now that Northwest and QO have done it, we’ve seen the idea,” she says. “Maybe if we just got the track teams from WJ or Churchill and team up with them to work together, I feel like we could raise a lot of money.”

Sebastian says running alongside the participants is the best part of the event.

“All these students around me sacrificed an entire Friday afternoon to a cause bigger than themselves, and bigger than any of the expectations that anyone set for them,” she says. “I am touched to be in a community where an event like this is not only possible, but unbelievably successful.”