Jump for Kids<\/a> is celebrating another year of its volunteers serving as the beer and wine vendor for Run Fest, and for Shopapalooza (Nov. 29-30). Jump for Kids is dedicated to promoting physical education, fitness and health in Florida children aged 5-17, including \u201cproviding access to sports, nutrition programs and self-defense training that build healthy habits, resilience and confidence for life.\u201d<\/p>\nFounder and President Jeff Pope, a weightlifter and personal trainer, originally conceived of JfK while living in Jacksonville. He had become involved as a volunteer and contributor with a breast cancer charity, In the Pink, and wanted to find a way to turn his day job into an opportunity to give back.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pope felt there was a gap in the sorts of people he was able to support. It wasn\u2019t dedicated weightlifters or fitness enthusiasts who could benefit from him, he reasoned: It was young people who lacked exposure or opportunity to build skills around fitness.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you can reach people when they\u2019re young and teach them about exercise and weight training, Pope reasoned, \u201cthey\u2019ll actually have the basics in their toolbox that should make them thrive.\u201d Jump for Kids was\u00a0 founded after Pope relocated to St. Pete in 2013.<\/p>\n
Since then, Jump for Kids has partnered extensively with public, private and home schools alike across the bay area. Its programs feature in Pinellas County Schools from Gulfport Elementary in the south to Dunedin Elementary in the north; it serves five of the eight locations of Plato Academy, an award-winning charter school, and two local home school networks, Hop Home Schools of Pinellas and Love of Learning. In addition, JfK runs a number of programs independently or in collaboration with groups like CASA and Big Brother Big Sisters.<\/p>\n
That includes an array of fitness and martial arts-themed resources, like girls\u2019 self-defense courses, PE programs, custom fitness and nutrition plans, and run clubs. They\u2019ve even returned to their roots, as they\u2019re building out the high school weightlifting program for Plato Academy Tampa.<\/p>\n
Jump for Kids hit upon the unusual fundraising strategy of selling beer and wine at local events thanks to a connection with local realtor and restaurateur Jon LaBudde. Pope wanted to ensure a fundraising stream that was both reliable and repeatable \u2013 and didn\u2019t mind looking outside the box.<\/p>\n
Pope realized it was unusual \u2013\u201cWe\u2019re giving alcohol to adults and using it to help kids,\u201d he said with a laugh \u2013 but also that success would be self-sustaining into the future.<\/p>\n
After completing the onerous process to secure a beer and wine license, Pope and JfK secured the beer and wine vendor role at both Run Fest and Shopapalooza, in addition to supporting the Localtopia and Skyway 10k events. This year, their portion of beverage sales across those events could exceed $40,000, all of which will go to youth fitness.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They\u2019re also providing free entries to Run Fest\u2019s 1 mile kids race for 25 local kids \u2013 and new running shoes to match. They frequently provide shoes, basketballs and sports equipment to local families free or at cost.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jamal Wise, the group\u2019s director of school operations, got involved with the group as he looked for new ways to engage youth in an after-school program for those struggling in reading and math. Exercise and the outdoors, he reasoned, would help keep kids engaged. \u201cWe set up tents at high schools to help kids get into kickboxing,\u201d Wise remembered.<\/p>\n
Since then, JfK has opened in more than a dozen schools across the area. Said Pope, \u201cJamal has been amazing at getting us new locations \u2013 we\u2019ve added in 10 locations in the last 12 months.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve got to say, everything that we\u2019re doing right now is accomplishing all of our goals.\u201d<\/p>\n
St. Pete Run Fest website<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A local nonprofit at this weekend\u2019s St. Pete Run Fest will raising money for youth fitness in an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":37843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-37842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}