Students at several elementary schools in the Merrimack Valley School District walked to school last week, as part of a national Walk and Roll to School Day initiative to encourage exercise and healthy habits.
On Thursday morning, Loudon Elementary School fourth and fifth-graders met at the Loudon Fire Department safety complex building on Cooper Street and walked about half a mile down South Village Road to the Loudon Elementary School building on School Street, accompanied by parents and school staff. Kindergartners, first- and second-graders did the same walk on Friday morning. Loudon police officers escorted the group to the school, with Loudon Fire Department personnel bringing up the rear.
School Nurse Heather Mason, who organized Loudon’s walks, said the kids, parents and teachers all enjoyed the event.
“Part of the reason to do Walk to School Day is to bring attention to healthy habits,” Mason said. “It’s more environmentally friendly to walk to school, it brings the community together, it’s fun.”
Mason said walking in the morning releases hormones that can also increase academic achievement, cognitive performance, reading fluency and executive functioning for students.
Walk and Roll to School Day is national event that began in 1997 to build awareness about the need for walkable communities. Every year, thousands of schools across the U.S. sign up to participate hold a walking event on a day of their choosing within the month of October.
This year there are 10 New Hampshire schools that are registered to participate on the Walk, Bike and Roll to School website, including the New Searles School in Nashua, the Garrison School in Dover and Hanover Street School in Lebanon.
Webster Elementary School also held a Walk to School Day event on Oct. 18 where students met at the Webster safety building and walked about a half mile up Battle Street to the school. They were accompanied by Webster police officers.
Salisbury Elementary School held a Walk to School Day event Friday, where students walked from the Salisbury Safety Complex up Old Turnpike Road to the school building.
“It’s one event that we do where we usually have so much participation from our families,” said Stephanie Wheeler, principal at Webster and Salisbury Elementary Schools. “It’s just a fun event, we meet, we make signs. It’s part of a healthy habits theme that we have.”
Webster and Salisbury have held Walk to School events for years, but stopped last year during the pandemic.
The National Center for Safe Routes to School, the organization behind the Walk and Roll to School initiative, encourages local organizers nationwide to connect with their local officials and advocate for make their roadways safer for walking and biking.
Both Mason and Wheeler said that at Loudon, Webster and Salisbury Elementary Schools, students don’t usually walk to school, because of a lack of safe routes to take. Instead, most ride to school in buses or cars.
“For Salisbury and Webster kids, there’s only a couple of kids at each school that really have the opportunity to walk to school,” Wheeler said. “Either there’s no sidewalks or they’re coming from quite a distance. This event gives the kids a sense of what a lot of kids are able to do, walking to school.”