Members of the Fuqua School Parent, Teacher, Student Association (PTSA) gathered on the First Avenue Field Saturday morning, March 23, to host the inaugural running of the one-mile and 5K Community Color Run. The organizers did not anticipate how much fun or how successful the event would ultimately be.

To view more photos of the event, click here.

We caught up with Sarah Grant, vice president of the PTSA at Fuqua School, bright and early Saturday morning at the First Avenue Field registration site. Grant, along with a number of other volunteers wasted no time raising the pop-up tent and laying out event T-shirts and sunglasses. The field filled up fast as families steadily filed down sidewalks from all directions. Children were everywhere —running and playing in the field, laughing and joking on the bleachers or just hanging out, enjoying each others company.

While Grant and her team were setting up, Carlos Holland, area director for Bojangles’ restaurants pulled up alongside the curb in front of the registration site. Holland was driving a pickup truck towing a Bojangles’ food trailer. A few short minutes after arrival, he was set up and passing out sausage biscuits and fresh coffee to participants. “We are very active in the community,” Holland said, “I enjoy getting out and helping with these kinds of events.”

Families from all over the Community, some of them associated with Fuqua School and some not, converged on First Avenue Field Saturday morning to run one of the two circuits. People armed with squirt bottles filled with different colored powders were stationed along the route and gave the runners a blast of the colored powder as they passed by.

The result — a group of runners and walkers, laughing and full of smiles crossing the finish line wearing rainbow colored T-shirts and movie star shades.

Sarah Grant, was one of the principal organizers of the Community Color Run. “We really wanted to figure out an event that would interest other people, outside of Fuqua School, to members of the community. We wanted to come up with an event that would bring the Community together and have some fun. We really hope this event will go over well enough to host it again next year.”

The flyer announcing the Community Color Run explained that when trying to decide on an event activity, organizers took a cue from the handful of successful events around Farmville. The Jingle Bell 5K, High Bridge Marathon, Longwood University’s Color Wars and other fun runs around the town all lent something toward the creation of the Community Color Run.

Grant, along with the other members of the Color Run staff, could hardly contain their enthusiasm with the success of the first event.

“I think this really is something we could do on a yearly basis, I could not be happier!” Grant said.

The decision was made early on that the Community Color Run would be a charitable fundraising event. The participants voted after the event to determine which charitable cause they would support with the proceeds. This year the majority vote favored The March of Dimes.

Franklin D. Roosevelt founded the March of Dimes in 1938. The main focus of the organization has been to support research and programs aimed at increasing healthy pregnancy rates and reducing birth defects and infant mortality.