Lucy Rosetti holds up some painted rocks she made to sell at last month’s Jackson Elementary School fundraiser benefiting the upcoming Walk with Austin TRY-Athlon, coming up Oct. 1. Village Life photo by Jana Rossi

The Jackson Elementary PTO held its annual Ice Cream Social last month. This year, 25 students from fourth and fifth grades sold crafts they created in an effort to be official It Takes A Village sponsors for the upcoming Walk With Austin TRY-athlon.

A total of $1,481.86 was raised during the two-hour event, garnering not only donations, but attention to a worthy cause.

In 2019 Walk with Austin became an official nonprofit organization created by parents Holly and Adam Reininger. Their ongoing goal is to provide fun opportunities for children with disabilities after their son, Austin, was diagnosed with an extremely rare disease with no known cure. The Reiningers have since made it their mission to help other children with disabilities and their families.

Sixth-grader Kaitlin Strawm and eight-grader Stephanie Estrada, both from Marina Village Middle School, helped their friends and neighbors, the Slade brothers — Jackson (fifth grade), Jonathan (fourth grade) along with older brother James (seventh grade) — create and sell Perler bead keychains as well as scented candles made from donated soda cans. The friends said they would head straight home from school each day to work on their project, which Kaitlin said took about a week, with a bit of a learning curve.

They used measuring cups to warm the wax in hot water and, once in liquid form, they would pour the wax into the various soda cans, adding scents such as vanilla, cinnamon, pumpkin and ocean. Luckily for the group, Kaitlin’s grandmother makes candles and was able to donate the different scents. Once completed, the group walked door to door in their neighborhood and had already raised $700 prior to Jackson’s event.

Fourth-grader Lucy J. Rosetti told Village Life she spent about three days painting rocks with her mom. Her creations were selling for $5 each and shoppers had their work cut out for them; it was tough to decide between hatching chicks, calico cats, blue crabs and even the Jackson Jaguar.

Angelina Costanza, who is also in the fourth grade, and her mom Kristen chose to make candles in two different themes: The Jackson purple candle had a marshmallow scent, while Autumn was decorated to capture the feel of fall. Together they held down their table, selling their candles for $5 and $10 each.

In addition to crafts, Handel’s Ice Cream was there to help raise funds and cool the crowds off by offering three of its most favorite flavors: chocolate, mint chocolate chip and Graham Central Station. The Pink Ice Cream Cart Co. was prepared with everything from snow cones to missile pops and Authentic Street Taco was dishing out tasty dinner fare from the widely recognized food truck.

The second annual Walk With Austin TRY-athlon is scheduled on Oct. 1 at El Dorado Hills Community Park. For more information visit walkwithaustin.org/events.