By Bauhinia Chen ’26
Nov 14, 2025
On Friday night, November 7, SO Glow illuminated the Mercersburg Academy campus with neon lights as students ran and walked along a one-mile loop dressed in glowing accessories. The event is a fun run hosted in partnership with Special Olympics Maryland with the objective of raising money to support athletes with intellectual disabilities.
Despite the drizzling weather, the response to SO Glow was overwhelmingly positive as it brought the community together in lively spirits. “I had a lot of fun, and my whole PGA really ran it. We all were hanging out after. So it was a great way to see each other one last time as a group,” said Julia Krugh ’26.
Riley Choi ’28 said, “It was really energetic. I really liked how the teams that started later were trying to go in front of the people who started earlier. I was trying to go across the tennis team which started before us, the squash team. And I was really proud that our team got second place. They really utilized the big campus area well. I also liked that there were a lot of events going on in SSC afterwards. So I thought this was really meaningful and fun.”
Students ran in their teams, celebrating the final moments with their fall PGA. “What stood out the most to me was having sort of a last ‘hurrah’ with your PGA. It felt like it really marked the end of the season. It was nice to gather with the other members of my PGA,” said Christine Jiang ’26.
Marli Elshazly ’26 concurred: “I would say it's pretty lively. I think it was nice because you still have that leftover team spirit from the fall term, being with your PGA group. And yeah, I think the energy was really high.”
While students started the run in their respective PGAs, different groups eventually mingled. Sophie Oh ’26 said, “Some people were excited to run, some people were excited to walk. I know a lot of the PGAs started merging together, and people were just walking and cheering each other on. Everybody had good spirits.” Annie Wu ‘27 agreed: “I was able to bond with the people in my PGA and the people running with me in the other PGAs. We were all socializing with each other.”
Collectively, Mercersburg easily surpassed the goal of raising $8100 with a total exceeding $11,000. Among all PGAs, swimming raised the most money with $3,416. Their success reflected the swim team’s spirit. “Coach Matt is a very ambitious person, and his competitive side is what drives him to win a lot of things. We kind of had to be like, ‘Okay, we are the biggest team on campus, we have to put some effort into this and get ourselves more involved in supporting the school.’ I'm profoundly happy about it because overall, being able to provide for someone else is what drives our team to become better,” said Antonina Sech ‘26.
Teammate Xiomara Del Rosario ’26 added, “There was a lunch announcement that reminded us that we did not raise any money. Our plan was that we were going to, we just hadn't gotten to it yet. But after that announcement, Matt realized that he doesn't like losing, and neither do we, especially being the biggest PGA on campus. So we did what we needed to do, which was raise the most money. We weren't able to go to the actual SO Glow run because we had a swim meet. But even so, we strived to contribute the most to the fundraiser. Our goal as a swim team was to raise $1,800, and we surpassed that by a lot, which we were happy about.”
Highlighting the unity and energy of the Mercersburg campus in neon lights and shared footsteps, SO Glow brought the school together in a shared spirit of generosity as students worked collectively to make a meaningful difference.