International Walk to School Day: 2013

Today is International Walk to School Day.  It's a fun day to promote health and wellness as well as giving kids a chance to meet their neighbors and get to know their neighborhoods a little better.  This is the fifth year that we have participated, seeing as how Frances has been in school for five years!  This is likely the last year that she will be able to participate fully because the Middle School is too far from our house.  But the fun thing is that all of the kids at our elementary school get to participate no matter how they would normally get to school!

Kids who live close enough (and have parental assistance) can, of course, walk from home, but some kids don't live close enough or don't have parents who are able to help them out. So the school does the next best thing! The bus riders all get dropped off around the corner from the school and all the kids get to walk in together from there. There are teaches and community volunteers who meet the kids and walk with them, as well as police escorts along the way.

This year we even had another special helper!  I honestly have no idea who he is, and the kids didn't seem to recognize him either, but he walked in the whole way with us. (I did ask him why he was walking and not running and he told me it was his day off!)  He did do a couple of funny little runs up to a tree and back and got all the kids laughing.  He seemed like a really neat guy and the kids ate it up!!

After we walked Frances and Henry to school, Ken and I continued on to Benjamin's school.  Then Ken walked to work, while I headed back home to get the van and drive to work.  In my defense, tonight is soccer/ballet night and I had to pack up dinners and still get to work in time to not have to use extra time off.

For the record, this is the first time we didn't use a stroller!!

How do your kids normally get to school?  Does your school participate in International Walk to School Day? Would you dress up in a costume to escort kids to school just for the heck of it!?!

International Walk to School Day 2009 and 2012.  Shockingly, I must not have blogged the other ones!!