LOUISA COUNTY, Va. — One Louisa County teacher is going the extra mile for her students — literally.
Kate Fletcher is an English teacher at Louisa County High School.
She has planned to run 105 miles from Louisa to the reflecting pool in Washington D.C. on Monday. Fletcher will leave Louisa at 9 a.m. in front of a cheering crowd of students and staff.
She’s expected to arrive in D.C. Tuesday morning at 10 a.m.
Fletcher’s position will be live-streamed back to the other schools thanks to a GPS tracker that will provide real time tracking of her progress. The Louisa County Sheriff’s Office will escort her the entire way.
The run raises money for scholarships for hard-working seniors at the school.
“They all understand what it means to work hard and to go the distance and to take the harder road in life and to endure for something that they care about,” Fletcher said before the run. “In that way, I think it is very relatable. They might not be runners. But, they're all people just like the rest of us who have been in situations where they had to push through discomfort and climb hills and go through valleys to get to where they needed to go.”
This is not the first long journey for Fletcher to help her students.
In 2018, she ran 100 miles in a 24-hour period around the high school track. She also ran 52 miles to the Virginia State Capitol.
Her journeys have raised more than $70,000 in scholarship money since 2016.
“I’m able to do this enormous run because I'm supported by the community,” she stated. “And that is also a message that I think our students need to hear. In order to achieve our potential in life, we really need each other. We really need to make this a ‘we’ thing and find ways to support each other and reach our potential together.”
The goal this year is to raise $50,000.
