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The Rogers Park staff has organized Spring Forward For Sandy Hook, a 5-kilometer walk/run beginning at 8:30 a.m. Saturday. Proceeds from the race will benefit the Dawn Lafferty Hochsprung Memorial Fund and the Lauren Rosseau Memorial Scholarship. Both women were among the victims in Sandy Hook and had well-established ties to the Danbury education community.
Rogers Park teachers Jen Powers and Tracey Kurjiaka along with principal Pat Joaquim, three of the women who helped organize the race, were among the Rogers Park staff distributing T-shirts and other pre-race goodies to runners and walkers Thursday at the school.
“We’re a little concerned that we have enough shirts,’’ said Powers, a sixth-grade reading teacher. “We’ve gotten a good response from the community.”
The course will be lined with 26 “inspiration stations.” The stations will include quotes and banners made by students at Danbury schools. The stations will be decorated to reflect the healing message in the quote.
“We were thinking of having remembrance stations, but we thought that it might be better to have a more uplifting message,’’ Powers said. “A teacher came up with the phrase inspiration station, and it had the right ring to it.”
Online registration closed earlier this week, but runners and walkers can still register Saturday morning. The organizers expect far more walkers than runners for the race. About 60 educators from Sandy Hook Elementary School will take part. Preregistration has already surpassed 1,000.
Hochsprung, the Sandy Hook principal, was a vice principal at Rogers Park earlier in her career. Her husband, George, taught at Rogers Park until the day of the shooting.
Rousseau completed her internship at the former Roberts Avenue School in Danbury and was hired as a full-time substitute in several Danbury schools before working at Sandy Hook. A portion of the money raised Saturday will go toward a scholarship in her name for a graduating Danbury High School senior who will pursue education at the University of Connecticut.
The race begins in Rogers Park and heads up Main Street. The runners will begin at 8:30, and walkers will start at 8:50. The Housatonic Valley Sports Organizing Committee is assisting with race details.
“We’ve never done anything like this before,’’ Joaquim said. “This is out of our comfort zone. But I think we're doing a good job managing everything."
With a good weather day and a sizable number of walk-in registrations, the event could be one of the biggest Danbury has seen. City police will assist along with nearly 60 volunteers.
Complete details are available on the race website.
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