Walk/Ride to School a Success

There were walkers and bikers on International Walk to School Day on Oct. 5 — close to 200 in fact.

Tootin' Hills Elementary School, located at 25 Nimrod Road in West Simsbury, participated in the event, which also had police escorts on a bike, as well as walking and in a patrol car.   

"It involved about 200 people, at least 158 children. The Wellness Committee provided healthy snacks," Susan Masino, chair of the Safe Routes to School Committee at Tootin’ Hills.

Safe Routes to School is a national program, established in 2006, that seeks to improve the health and well being of children by enabling and encouraging them to walk and bicycle to school.

Masino said she was hoping 100 children would participate; normally maybe five or 10 children walk to school on a given day.

To stir up interest, the school offered four Walking Wednesdays, which drew as many as 33 children one Wednesday.

The national Safe Routes to School group is behind the International Walk to School Day. The Connecticut Safe Routes to School organization awarded an assistance grant (no money, but expertise is given) to Tootin' Hills to create a brochure to promote Safe Routes to School.

The brochure shows some walking and biking routes to Tootin’ Hills — and for later years to Simsbury High School. Masino said walkers to the high school from this area could probably sleep an extra half hour.

The handout highlights safety, such as using walkways and obeying traffic signals, as well as reasons to bike or walk to school, such as reducing dependence on fossil fuels, and building a sense of neighborhood.

For the Oct. 5 event people chose from two locations. One was for walkers — the Flamig Farm parking lot — and the other was for bikers — Mountain Park.

For more information on these programs go to www.saferoutesinfo.org, www.ctsaferoutes.org, www.walkitbikeitct.org or www.letsmove.gov.