Walking to School for Healthy Highline Month

The School Board (in snazzy Healthy Highline hats!) with Aimee Denver

Last Wednesday, I had the honor of proclaiming October "Healthy Highline Month". You can read it in its "whereas and therefore" glory here.

Also at the board meeting the School Board and I agreed to participate in the Healthy Highline Activity Challenge! With board member Bernie Dorsey as the chief instigator, the six of us agreed to walk, run, ride, or do whatever it takes to be active for the month of October. I started the challenge with two trips to the gym in a 24 hour period. There are many teams doing this across Highline and I'm excited to see so many "grown ups" being great role models for our kids.

October 5th is International Walk to School Day. That would be today, of course, and this morning I joined dozens of kids and the entire staff of Midway Elementary in walking to school. A friendly Des Moines Police Officer gave the kids a pep talk about staying on sidewalks and even flashed a handful of "tickets" she would give for kids getting off of the sidewalk as we walked up 24th Avenue to school. It was a great event to emphasize both healthy activity and safety with the students. Here are some photos from the event.



The kids were lined up and ready to walk to school behind the Healthy Highline banner.



I had a nice conversation with parents Alonzo and Sandra Gray, who accompanied their 3rd grader on the walk.



Midway's PE teachers Derek Severson and Derek Byrne helped direct the kids in the walk.



Many thanks to Highline's Val Allen and John Vander Sluis from the Bicycle Alliance of WA for organizing this event.