Turnout was smaller than hoped, but those that attended the Fun in the Sun day offered on the campus of Escalon High School on Saturday said it lived up to the billing, with both sun and fun in abundance.

There was a basketball game in one area of the quad at Escalon High, some serious face and body painting in another area, nearly non stop music, a dunking booth, water balloon fights, a ping pong tournament, pick up volleyball and more. (See photos, Page A2.)

Hosted by the 'Be the Change' group at Escalon, the goal was to help raise funds to put on the Challenge Day program again next year.

"We're going to try and do Challenge Day every year," said advisor and teacher Jason Collinsworth. "We were hoping this would generate enough money to fund one of the days."

Challenge Day is actually offered as a two-day program and reaches different groups of students and facilitators each of the two days. Goal of Challenge Day is to help students break down the barriers that separate them into on-campus cliques, hopefully resulting in a more tolerant and cohesive school community.

Collinsworth said a variety of fundraisers are being used to help raise money for the program and it's likely they will also seek funding from community groups, as they did for the initial Challenge Day.

Special activities at the quad have also been offered many Fridays and Collinsworth said those have been pretty well attended, ranging from everything from games to music to free barbecue lunches.

"Limbo and jump rope were our biggest ones," Collinsworth said of the activities that drew a crowd.