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Five Valley schools to ‘Walk and Roll’

Five Valley schools will be participating in the annual Walk and Roll to School Day on Wednesday, Oct. 3.

The five schools, Adele Harrison Middle School, Prestwood Elementary School, St. Francis Solano, Sonoma Charter School and Woodland Star Charter School, join 70 schools across Sonoma County participating in the Safe Routes to School event.

Sonoma Charter School is one of 18 schools throughout Sonoma County that launched a comprehensive Safe Routes to School program in 2012, because of a Federal Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality funds distributed to each of the nine Bay Area counties.

At Woodland Star Charter School, they call their event “Danny’s Walk” in honor of Danny O’Reilly, the parent who started their Walk and Roll to School Days who was killed by a drunk driver while riding his bicycle home from work in 2004. At St. Francis School, Principal Debbie Picard expects about 85 percent to 90 percent of its 210 students to participate.

Safe Routes partners hope the fun event provides a positive sample experience of walking or rolling to school that inspires families to try active transportation more often.

Safe Routes Sonoma County’s celebration of International Walk and Roll to School Day is sponsored by Safe Kids Sonoma County, the Sonoma County Bicycle Coalition, Measure M tax funds, Network for Healthy California, Kaiser Permanente and Eco2School. Clif Kid is also donating organic Clif bars, and FedEx is donating safety coloring books to several local schools.