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Students participating in International Walk to School Day 2013
Thousands of Riverside County students from more than 70 schools will be walking and rolling to school Wednesday, October 8 to celebrate International Walk to School Day.
This one-day event is a part of an international effort to celebrate the many benefits of walking and bicycling to school and to encourage more families to get out of the car and onto their feet on the way to school. International Walk to School Day kicks off a year-long effort to create sustainable walking and biking programs to help improve fitness, air quality, and traffic flow around schools.
As in past years, thousands of students and hundreds of parents and community-based volunteers will form “walking school buses” in which groups of children, adults and volunteers walk to school together. Many sites have planned exciting activities, such as visits from local elected officials, community leaders, police officers, firefighters, and safety mascots like IEHP’s “Rad Rider” and Riverside Police Department’s “Buckle Bear.”
McAuliffe Elementary school in Riverside is one of the schools that will be participating in the special occasion. It has made Walk to School Day a weekly event. Their Fit Friday activities include music, spinner signs and fun prizes for the students who walk to school.
“Every time we walk, we get prizes,” said a Damian Armstrong a student at McAuliffe Elementary in Riverside, “but I would still walk if I didn’t get prizes, because it’s fun!”
The event is coordinated by the County of Riverside Department of Public Health and is sponsored by a combination of public agencies, police departments, city governments and community organizations. A complete list of participating schools and school districts is attached. More information on the Riverside County Safe Routes to School program is available online at www.rivcoips.org or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/RivCoSafeRoutesToSchool.
