Teacher starts 100-mile run to Harrisburg

Decked neck to sneaks in bright orange and blue, Masterman teacher Louis "Luigi" Borda took off this morning on a 100-mile run to Harrisburg.

The aim was to publicize the need to better fund public education, as lawmakers finalize a state budget that drastically cut financial aid to schools.

District Attorney Seth Williams also joined the start of the journey, as it headed up Broad Street from school district headquarters toward City Hall.

More than a dozen other runners followed a police escort, but few planned to complete the entire four-day journey, with legs starting in West Chester on Friday, followed by Lancaster and Elizabethtown.

Before the start, the outgoing Borda chatted with TV reporters, urging people to join along the way, and sharing copies of his orange-covered kids' book, Andiamo ... Let's Go!, his tale of coming to Philadelphia from Italy as a child.

In Harrisburg, he said, "we'll be running around the capital building until they're done voting," he said. "Hopefully the governor will give us a little audience ... and tell us how we can fix this problem."

Williams, addressing the crowd, said he was lending support because it's far cheaper to spend money on education than paying the costs of crime and incarceration.

Dropouts are eight times more likely to wind up in prison than those who graduate high school, he said.

Planning to run the whole route was Eric Weissmann, who teaches math and physics at the High School for Business and Technology, while Pat Diamond - a history teacher getting laid off from Fels High - said he'd run "until I physically can't."

Diamond, who vowed to rejoin the group at the finish, said he went to school at Masterman and had Borda for a teacher.

Trailing the runners was the mobile home Borda will use, with LuigiGetsAround.com on the side - in orange.