As families and friends gathered, the height of her excitement rose quickly.

“I was very excited because it looked like people were having fun,” said NHS Vice President Nadine Kridli of the event she organized in honor of her little sister who has a rare disease. “I try to do different fundraisers to raise money and awareness for the A-T children’s project which funds research for cures for A-T, a rare, degenerative, genetic, neuromuscular disorder that attacks near all body systems and causes people affected to get weaker with age. I was just thinking of the best ways to raise awareness but do it in a fun way.  Because a lot of people do 5Ks and walks, I thought a color run might be a more fun way to capture people’s attention.”

Working in conjunction with BHHS’ National Honor Society, 149 NHS members met from 12 pm to 4 pm at the Lahser High School track on April 30th to help bring this event together which raised $10,000.

“I am really good friends with Nadine, and I am close with Maya,” said fellow Senior member Sara Griffin as the reason why she got involved.  “The reason why the Color Run was so important was that not many people know about A-T because it’s a rare disease, so it was nice that they did a fundraiser and talked about it more. In my opinion, the Color Run made people more familiar with the disease.”

National Honor Society advisor Julie Honkala explains how the Color Run was a success for the club

“I think it went pretty well. I mean, this was the first time National Honor Society took on a project this large and it went very well, especially since it was completely student led and the goal of it was to raise money, but ultimately to raise awareness,” asid Honkala. “It was also well received by people who attended, they enjoyed it and kids loved participating.”

On the day of the event, Kridli said she was “very emotional because I was thinking about my sister a lot. I shared her story with pretty much the whole school but afterwards it was exciting to see all the awareness we spread.”

Summarizing her thoughts, Kridli hopes to continue the tradition.

“The Color Run was really fun; a lot of people came and everyone had a good time. This year I did it through NHS, but my close friend, my mom and I were thinking of doing this again and repeating it next year. Our goal is to try to get even more people to come.”