Students, parents and staff from Castle Mound Montessori School (CMMS) in Flower Mound recently combined efforts to raise money to make a difference in the lives of sick children from across the country. The school held their First Annual Trike-A-Thon benefiting St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital. The CMMS group was part of a 20-year tradition of helping fund the hospital, whose mission is to end catastrophic diseases in children, at no cost to families. CMMS’s Head of School, Varsha Patel, was quick to climb on board to help the hospital in that mission. “I believe it is important to help St. Jude Children’s Hospital, and I suspected the parents at our school would feel the same way. Not only did we raise a lot of money, we had a fun series of safety lessons that will remain with our students for many years to come,” Patel said.
As the mother of two healthy, active daughters, Patel says her heart breaks for parents of sick children. “It’s so easy to lose perspective in this life about what is truly important, but as a parent, I think anyone would agree that if your child is healthy, you naturally feel a huge sense of well-being and gratitude,” Patel said. “If we have the ability to help make things easier for those who have sick children, then we should make every effort to do so,” she added. According to the hospital, the Trike-A-Thon program was developed in-part for early childhood educators to teach riding safety while earning money to help St. Jude in their medical endeavors. Efforts like that of Castle Mound Montessori contribute more than $7.7 million to St. Jude each year. “I plan to make the Trike-A-Thon a yearly event for our school. It’s the least we can do to help,” Patel said.
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