Kids benefit so much from walking to school, but fewer and fewer do it on a daily basis. A local walk to school program is a great way to get kids into the habit. Parents at Vienna Elementary (VA) organize “Walking Wednesdays” and here they share their story:
Vienna Elementary, a school with just under 400 students, has been participating in the October International Walk to School Day and a local spring Walk/Bike to School Challenge for several years. Almost all of our students live within 1/2 mile of the school, but about 3/4 are bussed because of two heavily traveled roads near the school. Bussed students are allowed to walk if accompanied by their parents. Our turnouts for these walk and bike to school days was as high as 120 walkers during nice weather.
This year we received a grant from Prevention Connections to implement a “Walking Wednesdays” program that was launched on this year’s International Walk to School Day (October 9th). Every Wednesday that a student walks, they are given a small foot charm to put on a chain. A local coffee shop, Cafe Amouri, has donated free coffee for the parents. The program has been an overwhelming success. We are regularly seeing over 150 students from all over town walking on Wednesdays and the charm and coffee table has become a small social scene.
As part of the grant, we purchased several hundred funflector reflective charms to give away on a few special days each year. We gave them out this year on December 7th and 14th and let the kids know there would be a special surprise for walking. Now that it is getting dark early, we wanted to help keep the children be safe when they walk in the dawn and dusk hours or on rainy or overcast days. Turnout was high and the children were very excited to see the reflectors which were in the Paw and Peace Hand designs. Now, almost all of our walkers have one on their backpacks to help make them more visible. Kids like the designs and proudly display them on their backpacks. Because it is not obvious that the funflector tags are highly reflective, we are sending out followup information to the parents about the pedestrian reflectors. Close to St Patrick’s day, we’ll have another funflector day with the shamrock design so that students will have one for their front (typically jacket zipper pull) and one for their backpack if they choose.
Sean McCall, a father of two Vienna Elementary students, is engaged in the PTO walk to school committee and contributed this post. Thanks for sharing your project and experience with our readers!
Elisabeth