EDITORIAL

The spirit is running high

   It seems to be spreading across municipal lines and hitting all age groups. Even kindergartners aren’t immune.
   Once the urge to do something positive and selfless for the community takes hold in one place, it pops up in another place and a new group joins in.
   Take, for example, the students at Florence High School who are staging a Relay for Life to fight cancer April 29-to April 30. They are getting donations from sponsors and will walk in teams all night at the school for the cause.
   They already bet three teachers that 50 players wouldn’t sign up for their pre-relay student-faculty basketball game to boost attendance.
   The teachers lost — not only the game (by an embarrassing 64-37), but the bet — and had to pay off by dying their hair purple.
   In the meantime, the kids, so far, have signed up 535 participants, 49 teams, and raised $40,798.69 for their Relay for Life.
   And now it has spread to St. Mary School in Bordentown City where a seventh-grader who participated in the Florence event last year, told her principal that maybe they should have one, too.
   Thus, Principal Frank X. McAneny had the first Mini-Relay for Life at the pre-kindergarten through eighth-grade school planned for Wednesday.
   The youngsters solicited donations to walk for an hour around the school and parking lot. The little ones were given a break and didn’t have to walk that long.
   All this comes after the mid-March St. Paddy’s Day 5K Run in Bordentown City sponsored by the Bordentown Regional School District Education Foundation that had some 800 people running to provide scholarships to high school graduates and grants to teachers and the community.
   The community spirit is up and running and with folks like this, there’s no reason to think it will stop here.