LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Students from all over Louisville are getting active and going the distance by completing a half marathon. One hundred fifty students are lacing up their sneakers for a Louisville active program called Kids Finish First. 

Vice President of Marketing and PR for the Louisville Sports Commission Lisa Mills says it’s important to give kids the opportunity to be active.

“Get them moving to get them to where they just appreciate the movement and can find something that they can be passionate about,” said Mills.

Destiny Stepp, a student from Slaughter Elementary School, says she has been preparing over the course of six weeks to do a distance of a half marathon.

“We’ve been preparing for the last weeks and we’ve been running around on Mondays. And then today was our race, and we and we’ve been practicing a lot. We’ve been trying our hardest and working really hard to do this,” said Stepp.

Mills says in the past 12 years, this program has helped entire families to embrace the idea of running.

“The kids start running, and then they get their parents to run or their caregivers or their aunties or their grandparents. So we have seen this become very intergenerational,” said Mills.

It’s a free program for the kids where they receive a medal and finisher shirt.

Students from Audubon Traditional Elementary School shared their new passion for running. “What I like about running is I get to see all my friends and have fun,” said Isaiah Carnes. “What I like about running is that we just get to run as fast as we can,” said Tucker Lafond.

“Kids Finish First” has impacted over 4000 kids.

“We hope that they’ll take that habit on and it’s running is something that they can do and continue to do, you know, at home in their neighborhoods and when they get back to school,” said Mills.

Mills hopes the program grows to continue to expose students to an active lifestyle. Louisville Sports Commission is already planning the next “Kids Finish First” run in mid- to late July.