GRIDLEY, CA (MPG) - Gridley’s Sycamore Middle School sprinted into spring break with a color run Friday, April 3.

The annual color run has grown each year, with various features added to increase the fun.

“It’s the ninth annual color run and every year it gets a little bit better and a little bit bigger and a little bit more fun,” said Heather Yost, a teacher at Sycamore. “This year it should top everything else because we have the water shark!”

Water shark, you ask?

Students don white T-shirts for the event, while other students, teachers and volunteers’ station themselves around the course with bottles of colored chalk at the ready. In order for the chalk to stick and vividly color the shirts and students, it helps to get wet first.

Students run through water sprayed from Cal Fire Ladder Truck 74 while Gridley Police Department units monitor traffic along Magnolia and Sycamore streets.

A new inflatable water feature, an arch shaped like a shark’s open jaws, included spraying jets positioned so students had to run beneath it.

In addition to the arch, students began the event with a water balloon fight. Cal Fire/Gridley Fire Department brought a ladder truck, and with assistance from the Gridley Police Department in closing nearby streets, firefighters sprayed hoses over runners as they rounded the corner of Magnolia and California streets.

Although smiles and squeals of laughter filled the course, the color run was not just for fun.

“We are raising money for the California Junior Scholarship Federation (CJSF),” said Yost.

Teachers joined the fun, stationed along the color run route. Here, teacher Heather Yost, one of the organizers, prepares to throw a water balloon at passing students.

Yost said CJSF students participate in two field trips each year to visit colleges.

“We try to go to a public school and a private college so students can see the difference between the two. We take tours, eat lunch on campus and try to do something fun afterward to give them a college experience,” Yost said.

Whether members of CJSF or not, participants had their own colorful experiences while supporting fellow students during the ninth annual Sycamore School Color Run.