An internationally recognized day took a local spin this morning.
The worldwide Walk to School Day hit International Falls and Littlefork-Big Falls Schools this year in efforts to incorporate healthy choices into everyday activities.
“Our goal is that all elementary classes get information about the day and be encouraged to bike or walk to school,” said Nancy Lee, Koochiching County public health nurse last week as she worked with schools in spreading the word. “Hopefully it will take on a little flavor of its own.”
Locally, it is promoted as a walk or bike to school day, since many children already bike to school. Lee said it is more exciting to know the event is happening in other places across the world.
“The fact that this is an international event gives us a chance to join children and adults around the world in biking or walking to school,” Lee said. “This is even bigger than kids in Minnesota.”
Students who attend Littlefork-Big Falls School had the option of meeting at Lofgren Park and walking to school as a group. Christine Hagen, school nurse, said many students live too far away to walk the entire way.
“We’re promoting this as a team,” she said. “There are a lot of kids in town who already walk, and this encourages walking in the future.”
Hagen said the benefits of the event at the school are in conjunction with the L-BF district’s “Fuel up to Play 60” program which encourages students to make healthy food choices and get at least 60 minutes of physical activity on a daily basis.
The school also installed more bike racks during the summer in response to the number of students who bike to school, and to encourage more bikers, she added.
“I hope lots of kids participate,” Hagen told The Journal earlier this week. “I know many are excited about it.”
Lee said the event not only teaches about physical activity, but exposes children to safe pedestrian and biking practices.
“Our goal this year is to bring awareness and maybe next year we’ll have a bigger event,” Lee said.
She added it is important to give students credit for participating.
“We want to recognize and acknowledge that kids are doing something they don’t normally do,” Lee said.
Local and national organizers hope the event’s impact leads to more walking and biking to school regularly, not just for one day.
The Walk to School Day website, www.walkbiketoschool.org encourages students to “keep going.” One page states, “WINTER. SPRING. SUMMER. FALL...we can walk and bike them all!”
Organized by the Partnership for a Walkable America, Walk to School Day in the U.S. began in 1997 as a one-day event aimed at building awareness for the need for walkable communities, according to the website. In 2000, the event became international when the United Kingdom and Canada joined the U.S. for the first International Walk to School Day.
Last year, International Walk to School Day was celebrated at more than 4,000 events at schools across the United States, along with children and adults in 40 countries around the world.
Walk to School Day events raise awareness of the need to create safer routes for walking and bicycling and emphasize the importance of issues such as increasing physical activity among children, pedestrian safety, traffic congestion and concern for the environment, Hagen said.
Lee added that as the Koochiching County grant coordinator for the Statewide Health Improvement Program, she had been talking about the event since spring of this year.
“I am excited,” she said. “The goal is to see, within reasonable distance and reasonable weather, that kids are walking and biking to school.”
