ALTAMONT — Fun will be afoot in Altamont this Saturday.

As a finale for a month-long marathon fund-raiser, walkers will check in at the gazebo in the center of the village Saturday morning. A day of physical activ-ity and fun will follow.

In May, the Altamont Elemen-tary School PTA launched a drive to begin raising $100,000 for a new playground for the school, a place that is widely used by the community. The money is to be raised in stages and the playground will be built in phases.

The current playground was built 15 years ago with pressure-treated lumber. Like many play sets and decks, it is built of wood injected with chromated copper arsenate, which is 22 percent ar-senic.

In 2003, the Consumer Protec-tion Safety Commission affirmed that arsenic-treated wood — meant to foil bugs and prevent rot — poses health risks for chil-dren, who frequently put their hands in their mouths. Arsenic can cause lung and bladder can-cer.

The school district annually treats its wooden playground with sealant and also follows two other guidelines from the federal Environmental Protection Agency: Staff have children wash their hands after using the playground, and no food contact is allowed with the wood.

Other Altamonts

The marathon event is meant to raise consciousness about fit-ness as well as to raise funds. It is also raising awareness about Altamont’s identity.

Students and staff at the school have been walking a mile a day, to total 26 miles, 385 yards, just like a marathon. Organizers have plotted a virtual walk across the country — from Altamont, N.Y. to Altamont, Calif., and back.
"We’ve gotten to California, Utah, Kansas, and Illinois," said Tina Williams who chairs the walkathon.

She has corresponded with other Altamont Elementary Schools across the country and put together a booklet describing the history of each Altamont, which will be available on Satur-day.

Walkers earned wristbands for each five miles they completed, she said, and wristbands given out Saturday to the finishers at the finale will be have a distinc-tive red-and-white swirl pattern, in Guilderland’s school colors. T-shirts will also be available.

Williams hopes the donations and pledges for the walkers will total $5,000, which will bring in a total of $10,000, she said, since Stewart’s has promised to donate matching funds to the play-ground project.

"Awesome job"
Opening ceremonies will be held at the gazebo in Orsini Park at 10 a.m. on Saturday. The state’s Department of Health will present an "Eat Well, Play Hard" award, Williams said, in recogni-tion of the project’s promotion of good health.

Altamont’s Veterans of Foreign Wars Post will be the site of the Hall for Family Fun and Health Festival. The festival, which is open to the public free of charge, will run from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
"We’ll have a soccer shoot, a basketball throw, a rock-climbing wall and lots of games," Williams said.

While Williams is excited about the amount of money being raised for the first phase of the playground, she is even more proud of the change in attitude she’s seen among Altamont youngsters since the campaign started.
"The biggest thing for me is to hear the kids ask every day what they can do for exercise. Instead of playing on their Game Boys, they’ll ask, ‘How many times can I jump on a the trampoline to equal a mile"’"

Williams lauded the way ev-eryone at the school is involved and singled out the students in the BOCES program for special praise.
"For kids with physical chal-lenges, it’s amazing to see what they’ve done," she said. "They’ve done an awesome job."