‘Just trying to do good’: Junior college professor runs to support struggling students
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MODESTO, California (KOVR) — Coming up on day two and counting, Sam Pierstorff has his work cut out for him. The Modesto Junior College Professor is running four miles every four hours for 48 hours.
CBS13 caught up with him in the middle of the mountain of a workout.
“We just finished the half-way point. The midnight and 4 AM, they came early. But I would say, I’m starting to cramp,” said Pierstorff.
Cramped or not, Pierstorff was all smiles. That’s because his mission holds special meaning. It’s all to raise money for struggling college students.
“There were times when I didn’t have enough money for stuff, my credit cards were pretty packed,” said one of his former students, Daniel Cornejo.
Cornejo is an undocumented student who knows what it’s like to push through tough times.
“I always told my friends if we can make it out of here that just makes you worth this much more because you’re able to go through it while you’re struggling,” said Cornejo.
Now he’s running right alongside his former professor and carrying his message.
“We’ve normalized seeing people struggle and it’s just like another person struggling. But him, he’s going out of his way to help people that are going through very tough times in their life,” said Cornejo. “I really admire what he did because he’s going out of his way for students.”
“I’m just trying to do good, trying to gather some attention to these great community college students,” said Pierstorff.
Pierstorff is rising to the challenge to show his students that through any obstacle, no matter how challenging, if you set your mind to it, you can do it.
“If I can put my body on the line and go through some adversity and use that symbolically to represent the kind of students who we push to get to the finish line through all their obstacles, then let’s do it,” Pierstorff told CBS13.
His goal is to raise $20,000. As of Saturday night, he reached $17,000.
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