The formula is simple and allows each school to adapt it to its own possibilities. There is no single race for all schools; instead, each one organizes its own event on its premises, choosing the route and format it considers most suitable. "Every La Vuelta al Cole event is different because every school is different," explains Alba Sánchez, the initiative's coordinator, who also encourages rural schools and those with smaller student bodies to take part.
The race is only one part of the project. Before heading out to the schoolyard, teachers and students receive materials developed with professionals and educational specialists to explore in class what leukemia is, the role of science and why research is essential to making progress against the disease. They also address issues much closer to children's everyday lives, such as what happens when a classmate becomes ill and how to keep that child connected to school during treatment.
The initiative grew out of Sonia's experience, a mother whose son had leukemia and who decided to mobilize his school in Madrid. Over the years, that first proposal became a movement in which the foundation has placed particular emphasis on its educational dimension. "It used to be a taboo subject at school. It was very difficult to talk about," the coordinator says.
For precisely that reason, the organization argues that classrooms can be a good place to explain the disease to children in a way that is understandable and adapted to their age. "It has to be explained with great care and in a very educational way, but what better place than school to learn about these kinds of concepts?" Sánchez says.
TEN EUROS FUND 40 MINUTES OF RESEARCH
The other pillar of La Vuelta al Cole is fundraising. Families can make contributions, and the foundation uses an equivalency table so students can understand visually what each amount represents. Three euros equal 12 minutes of research, five euros equal 20 minutes and ten euros fund 40 minutes, based on the salary cost of a researcher in Spain.
The money raised goes to research projects supported by Unoentrecienmil to advance toward a cure for childhood leukemia. The foundation focuses particularly on lines of research related to prevention and relapses, one of the most difficult stages of the disease when initial treatments fail to prevent it from returning.
Across Spain, 1,550 schools and more than 559,000 people took part during the 2025-2026 school year, raising €1,168,410. The challenge for this edition is to surpass those figures, but the organization insists that success is not measured solely in money. "We have a very important awareness-raising goal. La Vuelta al Cole also puts childhood leukemia on the map," its coordinator says.
Since it began, the initiative has mobilized nearly 7,000 schools and more than 2.6 million people, including students, teachers and families, and has raised more than five million euros for research.
