By NEAL WAGNER / Managing Editor

ALABASTER – Students at Alabaster’s Meadow View Elementary School have held plenty of successful fundraisers in the past, but the past few years have been a little more personal.

For the past three years, students at the school have participated in the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation One Walk, which works to raise money “to make living with (type 1 diabetes) safer and healthier, until it is no longer a threat,” according to the JDRF. “As the largest T1D event in the world, it’s also an amazing experience filled with activities, entertainment and the celebration of coming together to change the future for everyone living with this disease,” read the JDRF website. “As the leading global organization funding T1D research, JDRF’s mission is to accelerate life-changing breakthroughs to cure, prevent and treat T1D and its complications.”

In the weeks leading up to the event, students secured donations from people in the community to support the JDRF. For each donation, the school placed a shoe representing a child battling juvenile diabetes in the MVES gym.

On Oct. 4, every student at the school braved unseasonably warm temperatures on the school’s track as they walked and jogged laps ending at a large inflatable JDRF One Walk tunnel, enjoying popsicles along the way.

Students were also encouraged to wear hats on Oct. 4 to “Put a cap on type 1 diabetes.”

For MVES parent volunteer Amanda Turner, whose daughter is one of multiple children at the school with juvenile diabetes, seeing the school and community partner to support children with T1D is an amazing sight.

“It’s great to have that support from the school and the city,” Turner said as she volunteered at the One Walk. “And plus, it brings awareness to all the kids at the school that some of their peers are facing juvenile diabetes, and it increases their understanding of it.”