Tonawanda jumps for heart health

Michelle Bond has a way of getting students to jump when she says jump.

The physical education teacher as Tonawanda Elementary said it is easy, especially when there's a good cause involved.

"We did our Jump Rope for Hearts on Feb. 13 for the American Heart Association," she said. "It was a lot of fun for (students) because they used a variety of jumping equipment, such as regular jump ropes, Chinese jump ropes and pogo sticks," Bond said.

In fact, Tonawanda's students - about 400 in all - jumped at the chance to come to the gym and do their thing for 30 minutes.

As the kids jumped, they raised money for the American Heart Association. Bond said she won't know how much was raised until the end of the month, but when she conducted the same program at Swanson in recent years, the school raised more than $1,500.

"Tonawanda is smaller, so we probably won't raise as much, but the kids really liked doing this and we want to promote good heart health. A lot of the kids jumped in memory of a friend or family member who suffered from heart disease or a stroke, so it was meaningful to them, too."

Bond said the other obvious good to come out of the program was to promote fitness.

"Jumping is great exercise, and you can do it in so many ways," Bond said.