3,000 Run to Benefit Agoura-Area Campuses : Races Earn $20,000 for School Supplies

The winner of the closest race of the day received no trophy Saturday when 3,000 runners hit the streets of Agoura Hills.

Instead, Maryann Kristan earned about $20,000 to help pay for children’s workbooks, pencils and other classroom supplies that school officials say are needed at four local elementary schools.

Kristan is a 38-year-old mother of three who outpaced bureaucrats, hard-nosed businessmen and doubters to organize “The Great Race of Agoura” in hopes of improving classroom instruction in two small Agoura-area school districts.

She worked 14 months at snipping red tape, organizing a 100-member committee from the four campuses, securing promises of support from local businesses and recruiting runners willing to pay entry fees of up to $10 that would go to the schools.

By race day, Kristan and her committee had signed up 1,500 runners--mostly students and parents from the four schools. They were hoping that as many as 2,500 would show up to compete in three races at 10, five and two kilometers.

Rain Checks for Shirts

But nearly that many runners were clogging Thousand Oaks Boulevard just for the two-kilometer race Saturday morning when Agoura Hills Mayor Vicky Leary raised the starter’s gun.

Kristan and members of her committee raced to register and collect entry fees from the last-minute entrants. When they ran out of the long-sleeved T-shirts they planned to give each racer, they issued rain checks.

Then Kristan helped line up the runners: Children on one side of the street, adults on the other and walkers--including a few dozen parents pushing baby strollers--at the back of the pack.

Despite the unexpected crush of competitors, the race began only 15 minutes late. Runners looped along several neighborhood streets and crossed the finish line a few minutes later to the cheers of friends and family.

‘Never Run Before’

“I’ve never run before. And I think it would be a little of an exaggeration to say I ‘ran’ this race,” said Andrea Shrednick, an Agoura Hills homemaker who accompanied her children Bryan, 8, and Marni, 4, on the 2K course. Her son attends Sumac Elementary School, one of the campuses selected to received race proceeds.

“But I came to support the schools. The best thing we can teach kids is that education is important to us, important enough that we’ll come out and run on a Saturday morning,” Shrednick said.

Sharon Russell, whose two children attended Yerba Buena Elementary School over an 11-year period, said she competed because she knows from experience that the campus badly needs financial help.

“Yerba Buena could use four times whatever it gets from today’s races,” she said.

The other campuses are Willow Elementary School--like Sumac and Yerba Buena part of the Las Virgenes Unified School District--and Brookside Elementary, which is in Oak Park Unified School District. They are separate school districts because Oak Park is in Ventura County, just north of Agoura Hills, and the others are in Los Angeles County.

Las Virgenes Supt. Albert D. Marley said his budget for supplies was reduced 12% last fall. Earlier cutbacks had reduced counseling, music instruction and health services, he said.

Race committee member Dan Geary estimated that Saturday’s proceeds will amount to $20,000.

Race expenses, such as the cost of the 121 engraved trophies presented to Saturday’s winners, were covered by donations from Agoura-area businesses, said Geary, who is president of Warner Center Bank.

Hundred-dollar donations earned merchants hand-painted race course mile-marker signs. A $3,000 gift entitled a real estate company to a plug on the back of the T-shirts.

Family-Oriented Event

“We’re not an easy touch when people come to us for donations,” said Peggy Skelton, owner of the real estate firm. “But I think this kind of function is more family-oriented than going door-to-door selling candy,” as some schools do, she said.

Kristan, who is a recreational jogger, said she was too busy Saturday to run in her own race.

“It was really thrilling, unbelievable,” she said of the turnout.

“When the 2K started, I stood there and looked in both directions and saw people running. It was like a river. It brought tears to my eyes.”