'Aina Haina — Parents at 'Aina Haina Elementary School really know how to raise money.

At a fun run held last month, the Parent Teacher Association raised $60,180.31 from a student body of fewer than 500 students, assisted by some corporate donations from parents and businesses in the 'Aina Haina area.

The Jaguar Jog was a new fundraiser for the school, said PTA president Liz Hamasu. And now it will be the school's only fundraiser for the year.

"We were quite blown away by this," said Susan Okano, school principal. "Our parents and the community work hard supporting our school. I'm very grateful to them."

The PTA uses the money to pay for the extras at school, mainly music, art and PE, and each teacher is given money at the start of the year to use for classroom expenses, Hamasu said.

Like many schools, 'Aina Haina finds itself needing to look to fundraising by parents to pay for those kinds of programs. Around the state, schools hold spaghetti dinners, chicken and cookie sales, raffles, recycling drives, carnivals and fun runs to pay for those extras. Each of those fundraising activities requires a lot of manpower, something that is hard to round up when both parents are working, said Roslyn Chun, a PTA board member.

For this fundraiser, each parent was asked to pony up $100 in pledges for the Jaguar Jog, a course set up on campus for students in each grade level to complete, Chun said.

Students jogged, skipped and walked along the course that wound through the campus, as parents cheered them on.

It was a risky concept, Hamasu said. The PTA did have a contingency plan for a spring fundraiser if this didn't work out. In the end, the fun run exceeded expectations, she said.

"Most of the kids brought in $100 or more," Hamasu said. "We had a lot of corporate sponsors. People were so generous and the parents knew that this was the one and only fundraiser for the school."

Some, like parent Greg Kiyan, donated thousands both from his family and from his company.

Kiyan, the father of a second-grader who previously attended an East Honolulu private school, said giving money to support the school's enrichment programs was not something he thought twice about.

"When you compare the donation to the cost of a private school, it's not so bad," Kiyan said. "It's such an excellent school. We want to help keep it going."

In years past, the school has put on a community fun day, which requires nearly all the parents to participate in shifts throughout the day. The Jaguar Jog required just 100 parent volunteers, community business donations and a few core parents to be the backbone of the event, Okano said.

"The teachers at the school were very supportive of the event," Chun said. "They explained to the students what the event was about and got the kids involved."

'Aina Haina parents acknowledge that their school is lucky that the economics of the community enable them to raise so much money. Other areas might not have the community resources to tap into.

"We just pitched this as our one and only fundraiser," Chun said. "We didn't want to nickel and dime everyone with a series of smaller fundraisers. People are so busy now. It's not that parents don't want to help, but their plates are full and there are just not enough hours in the day to do everything that they want to do."

The school has made enrichment programs part of its core mission, Okano said. With limited money, most of the school's discretionary funds go to pay for class size reductions and for additional programs, Okano said.

"We're fortunate that we have an active PTA that provides resources to augment our programs. We want to educate the whole student. Academics are important, but enrichment programs allow a child to shine in other ways."

Reach Suzanne Roig at sroig@honoluluadvertiser.com.