Students, family and supporters of the Atlanta Area School for the Deaf in Clarkston will gather on April 27th for a 5k run/walk called the PIP-Pah Success Walk.
The 5k will run start at the Atlanta Area School for the Deaf campus on Indian Creek Road and end at Milam Park in Clarkston. There, local businesses will have stands for vendors, and participants will enjoy games and prize giveaways. This is the 2nd year the PIP-Pah Success Walk has been held.
Proceeds of the 5k will benefit a program of the Atlanta Area School for the Deaf called the Parent Involvement Program, or PIP. PIP is an in-home tutoring service that connects sign language tutors with the parents of School for the Deaf students.
Dona Harris, the school social worker at the Atlanta Area School for the Deaf, said that PIP is a crucial service that helps parents of hearing-impaired children learn sign language. Federal funding for the program recently ran out, and the Success Walk aims to raise funds to continue the program.
Debbie Malcolm, a parent of one of the students at the AASD, said she attended the first PIP-Pah success walk in 2012. “It was a really positive day,” she said. She and her son, Alexander Balbez, have also participated in the PIP in-home tutoring program.
“That in-home tutoring is the best thing that ever happened to me,” she said. “Now [my son] takes an active role in helping me learn to sign.”
Clarkston resident Ted Terry, an organizer of the 5k, has been taking a community sign language course at the school for nearly two months. Terry is an organizer of the 5k and a member of CALI, the Clarkston Active Living Initiative. He said that “Pah” stands for the American Sign Language expression of the word “success.”
He said that one goal of this year’s Success Walk is to build on last year’s walk. One hundred people attended last year, and Terry said organizers were hoping for even more this year. He said organizers also hoped the Success Walk would help the school build relationships with members of the Clarkston and greater Atlanta communities.
Registration on the morning of the Run/Walk starts at 7:45 a.m. at the Atlanta Area School for the Deaf, and the walk starts at 8:30 a.m. Pre-registration costs $20 per person or $30 for families, or $15 per person if registering as part of a group. Same-day registrations cost $5 more. If you’re interested in sponsoring a family for the PIP tutoring service, visit rally.org/signlanguagetutoring. For more information, contact Dona Harris at (404) 298-3613 or doharris@doe.k12.ga.us.