Dolphin Day
PHOTOGRAPHY BY THE DARKROOM
St. Simons Island elementary school children, their families, school staff, and community supporters will all be out in full force for the 37th annual Super Dolphin Day Run. The races will be held on February 28th at the St. Simons Casino building in the Village. Races include a 10K that starts at 7:00 a.m., 5k at 8:30 a.m., and a 1-mile fun run at 9:30 a.m. Diaper Dashes for the littlest “racers” will start at 10:00 a.m. This year’s Expo will include silent auction items, information tables, and booths from a variety of vendors in the community. The Humane Society of South Coastal Georgia will be there with animals for adoption. There will also be fun activities from Games2U from Jacksonville. Wrist bands will be sold for children to have unlimited access to all the family-friendly games. After the race, there are free refreshments, music, and medals are awarded to the top finishers.
Just as big a part of Super Dolphin Day is Friday night’s Pasta Party at St. Simons Elementary. Race participants can come pick up their packets in preparation for the morning run and do a little carb-loading too. This year, Del Sur is sponsoring the Pasta Party, which will take place between 5:00-8:00 p.m. Dine in with friends and family and check out all of the terrific Silent Auction items that have been donated by local retailers and restaurants, including a handcrafted wooden longboard from King City Longboards. There’s also a raffle for a beautiful necklace valued at $1,500, donated by MariMax.
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This annual community event brings together St. Simons Elementary and Oglethorpe Point Elementary schools and is the biggest fundraiser of the year for both schools. Funds raised from the race are put in the PTA budgets and are used to purchase new computer systems, for playground upkeep, supplemental teaching resources, and fine arts resources. St. Simons Elementary used funds raised last year to reopen the popular Ocean Lab – a program welcomed with open arms by the students. Oliver Bateman, a first grade student at St. Simons Elementary says, “I am really going to try and run faster than I did last year. Watch me go faster than a speeding mullet”.
The Dolphin Day race was dreamed up in 1978 by Creta Nichols and Vicky Meyers. Both runners, they were trying to find a way to promote fitness to children. Nichols says, “37 years later, I am so proud of what we created and what it has grown into.” Sandy Jones came up with the logo and screen printed each t-shirt by hand with the tag line “faster than a speeding mullet,” a phrase coined by Dr. Jim McCully which has been emblazoned on the back of race shirts for the years to follow.
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that beginning, the Super Dolphin Day Race now brings in more than 1000 runners each year. “The community comes together to support these schools and there is really nothing else like it. I feel certain I will be here for years to come,” says Brooke Martin, 2015 Super Dolphin Day chair. Joining her as chairs from St. Simons Elementary are Rogelio Quintanar and Whitney and David Herndon. The chairs from Oglethorpe Point Elementary are Mandy McCaskill, Lori McCormick and Robert Jahn. The race chairs are joined by a large contingent of volunteers from the PTAs and the community-at-large who work to make this event such a success each year.
For more information about the races, registration, silent auction and pasta party, as well as additional ways to help the uphill fight to provide the children of our community with the resources they need to thrive, visit superdolphinday.com today.
