Running, skipping and jump-roping, the 16th annual Turkey Trot for students and a Tot Trot for children, coming from the Child Development Center, served a cause by donating canned goods that all went to
the city of Norwalk food bank on Wednesday.

All it took to participate in the trot was a donation of a dollar or a can of food that then lets you participate in the mile and a half long course that stretched the outskirts of the school.

All can and donations go to the city of Norwalk’s food bank and when the participants give the might not leave empty handed as one of the organizers of the event, Debbie Thomas, said, “They get raffled off gift cards to star bucks, restaurant gift cards for $25, we’ve got flash drives, we’ve got first aid boxes, shirts, [and] sweatshirts.”

Former Cerritos College cross country runners both took first and second overall as Jon Villa hit 7:46 and Danny Sanchez ran 8:09 on the mile and a half course. Both men found out about the race only seven minutes before the trot started.

As for competing against a fellow teammate, Danny is no stranger to running along side by side with Jon and it made no difference as he said, “It was just, “hey lets see who could last the longest,”” and both students are only running right now for fun for the time being.

As for the women, international student from Japan and athletic training major Ayuna Yoshii finished with the time of 9:42.

While at the raffling reward ceremony, when it came time for the winners to pick up their prizes the majority of the winners were not there. ASCC Juan Ramirez president later mentioned it was normal as a lot of people have class after the race and they end up contacting the people in charge later so they can pick up their prize.

With over 300 participants, the race was able to generate 783 cans and $71 in donations.

While the Turkery Trot is commencing, the Tot Trot, specifically for the children in the Child Development Program, was going on in a separate area in the quad.

Elena Alvarez, biology major and volunteer for the child development center during the event, offers her thoughts.

“This is something for the kids to do because they always see the same place and we wanted to do something different for them. There are a lot of kids who weren’t talking before that are talking now.”

In the Tot Trot, the children had a mini obstacle course that they ran through which consisted of different activities such as hopscotch, jump rope and a game that was played something like “Simon Says”.

Brisa Ocean, majoring in child development, has worked as an associate teacher in the Child Development Center for 4 years. She stated, “We do this every year (Tot Trot) and the children look forward to it.

Mihran Towid, a four year old student of the Child Development Center, talked about why this event is used as a donation of cans, “So people can have some food to eat.”

Professor Ocean asked Towid what he announced during class for the kids, “We need to bring some canned goods.”

Towid is an advocate of supplying canned food for the indigent.

Working at the Child Development Center for over 13 years, Vebra Gonzalez shared her sentiment, “The children feel empowered to help others and this is a way that they could be part and give to others that are less fortunate.”