McDonald’s renews All Schools commitment

From the left, Northern Marianas Athletics secretary general Robin Sapong, PSS Athletic Program director Nick Gross, McDonald’s Saipan and Guam owner Marcia Ayuyu, and NMA president Ramon Tebuteb pose for a photo after McDonald’s Saipan and Guam donated $3,000 to the 2021 Public School System All Schools Track and Field Championship coming up this weekend. (Kimblery B. Esmores)

With the 2021 Public School System All Schools Track and Field Championship coming up this weekend, McDonald’s Saipan and Guam has donated $3,000 to show their commitment to its partnership with PSS and Northern Marianas Athletics.

According to McDonald’s owner/operator Marcia Ayuyu, McDonald’s tirelessly supports the annual track and field championship for the children of the CNMI as a labor of love.

“We are committed to this. Our McDonald’s family is always here and ready to do this for our children. For more than 20 years, we’re very happy to still be here to support our children. What we’re doing is really just out of our hearts. This is really for the children of the CNMI,” she said.

Ayuyu said McDonald’s looks forward to continuously support events that promote active living amongst the youth like track and field.

“We want to promote an active lifestyle because these days, most children want to stay home and play games so this is one way to promote going out and getting active,” she said.

Despite the notion that McDonald’s contributes to obesity in children, Ayuyu said it’s not true in the CNMI because the main purpose McDonald’s donates to events like track and field is to encourage children to live a healthy and active lifestyle.

“McDonald’s believes that it’s not just about what you eat, because whatever you eat, you can work it out. We’re happy to see so many kids come out and join compared to when we started this years ago with just a few a children. Now we have hundreds of children coming out to participate,” she said.

Nick Gross, PSS Athletic Program director, said the partnership with McDonald’s is an over 20-year partnership and it ensures that PSS is able to pursue the event annually.

“We’re just really excited to be able to continue the tradition of PSS McDonald’s All Schools Championships and having a partner like McDonald’s ensures that we can do it year after year and allows us to show some growth and continue to find the fastest runner, the longest jumper, and the furthest throwers in the CNMI year after year,” he said

The funds, Gross said, will cover costs for the event like water, medals, trophies, and food for 20-40 volunteers

Northern Marianas Athletics president Ramon Tebuteb said NMA is thankful for the continuous support they received from McDonald’s for the past 21 years of All Schools Track and Field.

“In behalf of NMA, we want to express our gratitude and thanks to McDonalds and PSS for partnering [with us] for a long time, it’s been more than 20 years. We wouldn’t be able to do this without the combined efforts of these sponsors and volunteers that come out,” he said.

Tebuteb explained that the McDonald’s donation allows the event to recruit the officials needed to smoothly run an event like track because there’s so many things going on at once.

In terms of officiating aspects of track and field, because it happens simultaneously, we need quite a few hands to take care of the officials. For track and field, you need quite a lot of officials,” he said.