On foot and wheels, bikers and walkers head to school  — Waterbury Roundabout

Kids and grownups leave Rusty Parker Park to head to school on Walk and Bike to School Day. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti

Organizers declared the spring Walk and Bike to School event last week "great success" as nearly 200 students, parents and teachers from Brookside Primary School gathered at Rusty Parker Park before heading to school on foot and wheels.

Physical education teacher Carol Baitz rallied the Wednesday morning crowd thanking them for taking up her challenge to "Be Brave" despite a weather forecast for showers. The rain held off until after school started. By 7:15, the park filled with youngsters and their adults who took a short time for breakfast of bagels and cream cheese and juice served up by volunteers from Waterbury LEAP (Local Energy Action Partnership).

LEAP organizer Bill Minter spoke to the crowd, congratulating them for parking their cars and walking or riding a bike (or a scooter in some cases) instead. Started over a decade ago, the twice-annual events with local school students were created under the Safe Routes to Schools program to foster both increased safe biking and walking to school, Minter explained. The effort aims to add physical activity and reduce reliance on vehicles.

Looking ahead, Minter said with more volunteers, the effort could become more frequent.

"This original mission needs a new revitalized group of volunteer activists to grow the movement toward regular biking and walking to school," he said. "Walk and Bike to School was intended to be an initiative with the goal that one day biking and walking to school would become the norm."

Baitz thanked the sea of students in helmets and their parents for getting out early. Starting their day with a little physical activity not only improves physical well-being, but it also helps put people in a good mental state to learn, she said.

Baitz and the LEAP organizers said they would welcome more volunteers to help grow the mission of biking and walking to schools. More information is online at waterburyleap.org or contact a LEAP member including Minter at [email protected] or LEAP Chair Duncan McDougall at [email protected], who says the greatest form of renewable energy is new volunteers.

Waterbury LEAP member Bill Minter and Brookside Primary School PE Teacher Carol Baitz (on the picnic table bench) cheer the crowd that gathered before 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday. Photo by Lisa Scagliotti