WATERLOO - Kittrell Elementary School students took a walk Wednesday to support juvenile diabetes research.

A school kids walk benefiting the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation was held. Students walked a mile along 11th Street and Ridgeway Avenue in two groups, divided by grade level.

"We have two students at Kittrell who are diabetic," said organizer Lena Simmons. Her fifth-grade son, Dylan, is one of the children. The other student is second-grader Zachary Heyerhoff whose mom, Cindy, also helped organize the event. Some, but not all, students collected donations for the walk.

"We're just trying to raise awareness and it kind of works in with their health curriculum," said Simmons.

The event was preceded last week by a lesson in every classroom where students learned about the different types of diabetes and what it means to be diabetic. In addition, students also heard a daily diabetics fact over the public address system throughout the past week.

"I had the children for 50 minutes," said Simmons, who taught the class with Cindy Heyerhoff. Another component was the "diabetes for a day" activity in which the children were given a rubber band to wear around their wrists. They snapped the rubber bands against their skin at certain points in the day to simulate checking their blood-sugar level and getting regular insulin shots.

Simmons' "whole goal" was to ensure students have a better understanding of diabetes. "I'm hopeful that indeed has happened," she said.

Contact Andrew Wind at (319) 291-1507 or andrew.wind@wcfcourier.com.