500+ Runners Unite for John Martin Catholic School Colour Run 5km and 8km
Thabo Motlhabi
Colour, fitness and community spirit took centre stage on Saturday, 24th October 2026, as more than 500+ participants gathered at John Martin Catholic School in Kagiso 1 for its 4th Annual 5km and 8km Colour Run.
Running for a Better School
Beyond the colourful celebrations, the race had a serious purpose: raising funds for school maintenance, improving sports facilities, supporting new developments and purchasing essential office equipments.
The initiative also aimed to promote a healthy lifestyle while strengthening relationships between educators and parents to ensure learners benefit from a positive and supportive school environment.
The principal of John Martin Catholic School, Mr Thekiso Maragelo, highlighted the importance of the Colour Run annual event to support the school’s continued development.
“To parents who participated in the event, we invited you to come share ideas on how to make this important colour run annual event. We value your recommendations, and to our learners, in due course, our sports facilities are not up to the standard, but based on our vision and intention, we intend to rebuild these facilities so our learners use them for extramutual activities. We have a vision on how we are going to use the money reused during today’s colour run in developing our school, and this initiative is one of the anticipated campaigns, as community members always support it.”
Kagiso 1 Residents Show Their Support
The impressive turnout reflected the community’s willingness to support initiatives that place children’s education and development at the heart of local progress.
As a Kagiso 1 resident, Tshepo Matlou praised the initiative for bringing people together while helping the school raise much-needed funds.
“Such initiatives are great for schools to fundraise in order to grow, and they also bring communities together in terms of unity, especially to children. The school always involves the church, and the community came to church, even though some don’t go to school here, but they came through and participated. This initiative also creates a platform for emerging entrepreneurs and small areas full of colourful food, drinks, and entertainment for children, and everything is on display for local people to support their own.”
Local businesses contributed vibrancy to the day.
The event was also a boost for local economies, with participating, emerging and established businesses setting up stalls to sell food and drinks. Stalls contributed to the festive atmosphere, transforming the school grounds into a lively meeting place where community members could connect, support local entrepreneurs, and celebrate a shared vision for the school. The school grounds are turned into a lively meeting place where community members could connect, support local entrepreneurs and celebrate a shared vision for the school.
Teacher Angelina Mpempe said the fundraising drive was essential to improving stronger partnerships between parents and educators.
“Today’s fundraising is important to our school because we want to fix our school, and it also helps to unite the community. This teaches learners to see that the educators’ and parents’ relationship is healthy and educators are grateful for their support. Today’s participants’ numbers are more compared to the previous programmes.”
Every Run Is a Winner
The colour run ended on a high note, with all participants receiving medals in recognition of their participation and contribution to the school’s development.
The successful event demonstrated that when the school and community work together, the finish line becomes the starting point for greater achievements.