By Dean Vaglia
Leader Staff Writer
Calling all runners, walkers and footrace-goers, the Kingsbury Country Day School is hosting the Twilight 5k Run or Walk on the evening of Friday, Oct. 1.
“It is a new version of our Oktoberfast, which we run every year,” Lisa Halushka, academy director of Kingsbury School, said. “It is a Kingsbury Parents Association fundraising event, and we set up a 5k course through our woods and fields here.”
Taking place over the 125 acres that make up the Kingsbury campus, racers will traverse a variety of terrains including wooded trails, open meadows, gravel roads and plenty of uneven ground.
Open to anyone, the race is a fundraiser for the environmental sciences program.
“This year, with the refurbishing of our historical Higby House and carriage house … we are going to be having our environmental studies program housed in that building so that they’ve got their own gathering space,” Halushka said. “[The house] needs to be furnished and equipped with scientific equipment, observation equipment, pond-dipping nets and those sorts of things.”
The event opens at 5 p.m. for registration and the main race starts at 6 p.m. Awards, which include gift cards to Hanson’s Running Shop and medals made by Kingsbury ceramics students, will be handed out from 7:15 to 7:30 p.m. A fun run with glow sticks will take place as the sun sets following the awards ceremony.
“In these challenging times, this run is really reflective of the character and personality of Kingsbury,” Halushka said. “We’ve been able to get through this COVID situation by taking our classrooms outdoors and the kids do an awful lot of their learning throughout the day — as they did last year — in an outdoor setting.”
Single entrant registration is $35 before noon on Oct. 1 and $38 at the event. Advanced registration for families is $75, which includes two hats and two wooden medallions. Interested parties who would like to run a virtual 5k instead can register for $35. There is no fee for the fun run.