A Daily Walk for a Lifetime of Health

When parents in their school districts were having a hard time remembering the once-weekly walking school bus, Jackson, Michigan community partnership came up with a good solution: a walking school bus every day of the week. By recruiting new volunteers and making Safe Routes to School a daily occurrence, the partnership has seen an increase in walking to school, and community members are taking note of their success.

Kristin Hendricks, former Executive Director of the Fitness Council of Jackson, was the driver of this successful effort. In a survey conducted with fourth, fifth, and sixth grade students at three elementary schools, Jackson Safe Routes to School tracked a steady increase of walking to school from 2004 to 2006. One school, the Jackson Arts & Technology Academy, saw an increase in student walking to school from 15% in 2005 to 26% in 2006. In the two other schools, Frost Elementary and Northeast Elementary, walking home from school also increased, despite the fact that walking school buses are only conducted for the morning commute.

Transforming the struggling weekly program into a successful daily program was no easy task. The key challenge was finding adult volunteers to lead the walking school buses. After being challenged in the recruitment of parents, Hendricks and team looked outside of the school to provide ten daily volunteers for 12 walking routes. They recruited through senior volunteer organizations and at senior centers, as well as by placing flyers in tubes along a walking route that was popular with older adults. Now with a full roster of volunteers, the walking school buses are familiar, dependable installations in Jackson.

The schools and the community are very aware of the program's success. "Some principals were psyched," Hendricks notes, "because the kids were more focused when they got to school. And the keys to our success - the adult volunteers - also have increased our visibility," she said.

Jackson Safe Routes to School can add a number of accomplishments to their list of successes, but at the top of that list is setting the stage for physical activity to become a way of life for local kids, Hendricks notes. "And that's the real success."

Resources 

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, Fit Together Grant Program

Town of Sylva, North Carolina

Jackson County Department of Public Health

Jackson County Cooperative Extension Center, Health & Nutrition

The Walk to Jerusalem™ – an original program after which the Fit Together partnership is modeled