Manawa Elementary School students learned about the importance of a healthy heart while raising money for the American Heart Association by participating in the Jump Rope for Heart event.

“Each school does it differently, but at some point they have an event where the kids get to jump rope or do activities with jumping,” said Corrie Ziemer, K-6th grade physical education teacher at Manawa Elementary School, who also helped organize the event.

The Manawa School District held its Jump Rope for Heart event on Friday, Feb. 1. Grades K-8th grade participated in the event.

“Our K-6th [grades] are doing Jump Rope for Heart and our 7th and 8th [grades] are at the high school doing Hoops for Heart today,” Ziemer said.

The activities the K-6th grade students participated in included: Short Rope Fun; Long Rope Fun; Pit Jumping; Trampolines; Twists and Jumps, Skip Its and Hula Hoop Jumping; and Healthy Heart Fun.

At the break station, students measured their heart rates to see how jumping causes their heart rate to increase.

“It’s really interesting to see some of the students that don’t really like to be active, [they] are really loving the activity,” Ziemer said. “You can see lots of smiles. They love jumping in the pit. That is one of their favorite activities, to land in the pit. They are all leaving sweaty and red-faced so that’s kind of the overall goal.”

Little Wolf High School students, as well as STEP volunteers helped with the event.

Ziemer said this is a yearly event. She also said that as of Friday, Feb. 1, the K-6th grade students raised a little more than $3,000. She didn’t have the total that the 7th and 8th graders had raised.

“Our goal was $5,000,” Ziemer said. “I don’t know if we’ll quite reach that but we should come close.”