Saccarappa and Canal Elementary Schools will once again sponsor a Walk Your Kid to School Day on Tuesday, Oct. 13. The rain day is Oct. 14.
Parents are encouraged to walk with their child to school and to pick them up and walk back home with them also. A brown bag breakfast will be provided to walkers upon their arrival to school.
As a special feature, Saccarappa/Canal PTA is coordinating “walking school buses.” Walking school buses have volunteer parents walk a designated route to school and pick up kids along the way. Three walking school bus routes are mapped out for this year for Saccarappa students. Flyers were distributed about the walk on by bus drivers and through Thursday folders.
The school and parents enthusiastically supported Walk Your Kid to School Day in the first two years we participated in this national campaign. The first year, 2002, close to half or 122 younger students walked to school accompanied by an adult; Canal had 65% of their students (173) walk to school and boasted one of the best attendances to school for that fall. In 2003, Saccarappa saw nearly the same level of participation with 111 students ambling to school. Canal followed up with over 60 percent again walking or hiking to school. Each year the younger students were all part of a “walking school bus,” or were accompanied by a family member.
Obesity rates among children have more than doubled in the past twenty years. In fact public health officials consider it along with adult obesity a national epidemic. Increasing the amount of physical activity for our children can heighten this picture. Walking or hiking to and from school (if it can be done safely) is an ideal way to get some of that physical activity in at no extra cost and also have it part of the family’s daily routine.
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