Mid-May, as students began taking their California STAR exams, dad Jason Harper started on a 100-mile race to improve health care for local kids in need. Harper called it The Extra Mile Run, and he did it to help the students at Sacramento’s Oak Ridge Elementary School and to raise awareness for California’s 1.2 million uninsured children.

Running over 100 miles in just over 30 hours, Harper arrived at Oak Ridge Elementary School in Oak Park at around 1:05 pm on May 16, where he was greeted by a boisterous crowd of students, school staff and community members. To give you some perspective on just how long those "extra" miles are, consider this: a marathon is 26 miles and 385 yards in length. Harper trained for over a year in preparation for his overnight back-to-back-to-back-to-back marathon, but when asked about the grueling (some have said "crazy") pace he put himself through, Harper insists it is "nothing compared to what these children endure every day."

Harper is quick to credit the local pediatricians, dentists, businesses and individuals who made his race worth running, helping him accomplish his goal of raising enough funds to provide health care for every student at Oak Ridge Elementary.

Oak Ridge serves one of Sacramento’s roughest inner-city areas, and many of its students struggle academically. Harper and Equal Start (a running team dedicated to investing in underpriveleged Sacramento youth) have partnered with Principal Steve Lewis and the school for four years. According to Lewis, "The Equal Start team and Harper have put over $100,000 into this campus. From a computer lab, to staff resources, to winter jackets, and backpacks for all students under third grade, their team puts a high value on meeting practical needs."

Despite efforts to address these basic needs, test scores at Oak Ridge have remained practically the same, showing little to no improvement in the kids' overall academic performance. Harper asked Lewis why he thought that was. "Without hesitation," Harper recalls, "he said 'a child’s health and wellness.'" Mr. Lewis explained that many of the children lack basic health and dental care, and explained the connection, saying, "students can’t focus on education when distracted with illness..."

This made sense to Harper, who started to wonder, "What if I were to go the extra mile for these kids and connect them to health care? What if I ran a hundred miles, bringing awareness and financial support to get the kids enrolled into established health care programs? Originally, I thought I needed 100 pediatricians and 100 dentists. But when I met the good folks at Cover the Kids, I realized they were the vehicle to make this happen." Cover the Kids is Sacramento's Children's Health Initiative, a non-profit organization that assists families with the enrollment process to Medi-Cal, Healthy Kids, and Healthy Families. These organizations handle the medical needs of California's under-privileged children.