Stepping up to healthy challenge

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

CARPENTERSVILLE — “That girl walked to school. Go get her!”

It wasn’t a threat or a schoolyard taunt for a classmate forced to walk to Golfview Elementary School on Wednesday.

It was the rallying cry of fourth-graders Megan Fukala and Melissa Castaneda as they sprinted after arriving students outside the Carpentersville school, their orange Gator Patrol sashes flapping behind them. The two girls handed out Gator Grams — green slips of paper redeemable for prizes — to every student they saw cross the street from the surrounding neighborhood to the school.

Gator Grams were just one of the incentives offered at area schools celebrating International Walk to School Day on Wednesday.

Ten schools in Capentersville-based Community Unit School District 300 and at least three in Elgin School District U46 planned activities for International Walk to School Day, sponsored by Making Kane County Fit for Kids. A total of 45 schools in eight of the county’s nine districts had signed up to participate in the event, according to the Kane County Health Department-headed initiative.

“Each school did it differently,” said Michael Isaacson, the department’s director of community health.

“In some schools, they had the fire and police (departments) out. Others had stickers. Each did it in its own way that was unique to them. And most importantly, we just wanted to raise awareness.”

Getting active

Each participating school district was given $1,000 by the Making Kane County Fit for Kids Funders Consortium, mostly to cover the cost of pamphlets and materials about International Walk to School Day to send home with students. Parent-teacher groups at each participating school in those districts were given $250 for future projects.

The goal was to raise awareness for “active transportation,” such as walking and biking, Isaacson said.

That walk to school can help students burn off extra energy and focus better in class. It also helps combat childhood obesity with that extra bit of exercise, according to the consortium. And its cuts down on the number of cars around school, which is safer for walkers, and cuts down on both air pollution and gas use.

“It’s just teaching healthy lifestyles. It’s teaching healthy living,” said LeeAnne Lober, treasurer of the Parent Teacher Council at Sleepy Hollow Elementary School. “I think everybody needs that, and we can’t encourage that enough at home and at school.”

Because the community doesn’t have sidewalks, Lober said Sleepy Hollow didn’t have very many walkers Wednesday — maybe 75 to 100 in a school of about 470. But it held several events promoting a healthy lifestyle leading up to the event, including launching the Mileage Club, in which students can earn tokens for walking and running laps.

Lining the walk

At Fox Meadow Elementary School in South Elgin, 75 teachers and Principal Jacqueline Hazen lined the walk from Hobart and Jenna drives to the school doors Wednesday to create a safe pathway along the school’s soccer field, according to Parent Teacher Organization co-president Kelly Nycz.

About two-thirds of Fox Meadow’s 860 students walked from home or were dropped off at the corner to make the supervised walk Wednesday morning, Nycz said.

And students who were bused still were able to participate. The PTO distributed worksheets to students to count sidewalk squares and red and white houses and create maps of their routes to school than can be completed on a later walk with parents.

At Golfview, International Walk to School Day aligned with the school’s effort to earn gold-level recognition from the U.S. Department of Agriculture ‘s HealthierUS School Challenge, said District 300 grants specialist Eric Knutson. Gator Patrol supervisor Alyson Delaney said she definitely saw more students walk to the neighborhood school than usual.

Second-grader Diego Flores, 7, pointed out one incentive of walking to school. He planned to use the Gator Gram he got for walking to get a book from the Gator Cart, where students can cash in the green slips at the end of the month.

Other participating schools in U46 included Prairieview Elementary and Eastview Middle schools in Bartlett. Carpentersville Middle, Liberty Elementary, Parkview Elementary and Perry Elementary schools in Carpentersville, Hampshire Elementary School, Eastview and Neubert elementary schools in Algonquin and elementary students at Westfield Community School in Algonquin all also participated in District 300.