Hello, Folks:

The Exceeding Expectations kids have been busy the last few months.

Our four June graduates selected their colleges and each has been accepted:

·    Joseph Patterson will be leaving the San Bernardino area to attend University of California Irvine.

·    Joselyn De Leon, Ana Campos and Sam Medina are headed to California State San Bernardino.

These new freshmen will be following in the footsteps of their EE teammates: Nik, Marlene and Louisa who have already graduated and the other nine who are currently in college, all of whom are good role models for the upcoming freshmen as well as all our younger kids, who are racking up academic honors as well as race awards.

Diana Vasquez, Karen Mandujano, Arian and Ahris Mayorga have all received recent awards for Academic Achievement. It’s clear that all the kids now  understand that working towards an academic goal is just as important as setting a race goal. Even the very young kids already have their sights set on college.

That said, EE has turned in some great athletic performances as well, starting with the Palm Desert Half Marathon and 5K in early February.

Orion Hernandez (below, left) stepped up this year and did his first Half Marathon, posting a very strong time, and the 5K podium was overrun with EE members.

Just a few of our Podium Finishers

In March, the kids participated in the Desert Tri. Most of them participated in the Saturday Duathlon, while some of the older kids braved the cold water and did the Sprint Tri. It’s a two-day event, with the Olympic Tri being contested on Sunday, and we had a few older kids competing in this event.

As at Tinsel Tri in December, our wonderful Tri La Vie supporters joined in and acted as Race Angels to our little kids. These volunteers take an assigned EE kid from pre-race logistics, through the entire course and to the finish line – prompting some outstanding performances from the little ones (ages 8-12).
 

Two Tri La Vie Angels

Interestingly, some of these youngsters run too fast for their Angels to keep up. In those cases, Angels waited in T1 and took them from there.

Each spring, good friend to EE Molly Thorpe puts on Run for Ike, a 5K in Palm Springs. Lee and I were in New York celebrating his Mom’s 90^th birthday, so were unable to attend. Nik Keller, our first college graduate, who is very active in serving as a volunteer/role model for our kids, took charge and ran the show in our absence – and did a grand job of it. Many kids came away with podium finishes, EE won the trophy for largest team participating, and Nik gave a heart-warming speech when accepting the team award, describing the importance of Exceeding Expectations in his life.

In April, for the past 15 years, we’ve attended PossAbilities, a Triathlon/5k to raise money for Loma Linda’s program helping physically challenged folks. It’s always an inspiring day.

Again, Tri La Vie stepped up as Angels and made the day for our little ones, all of whom had memorable races.

Lee was racing rather than taking pictures so he only got a few shots, but we were fortunate to have a couple of volunteer photographers, Martha Szufnarowski and Ellen Bird, who did a wonderful job of capturing the day in photos. Click here to see them.

Click here for a separate series of really terrific photos by Mari’s husband, Saints. Here’s a sample:

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We have big plans for these kids, and with both education and racing as our goals, it takes a good deal of time and money.

You folks, our supporters, have always been extremely generous with both. And for that, we are very grateful.

Thank you very much for the huge part you play in the success of Exceeding Expectations.

-Cherie