Community Corner
Get in Gear to Start the Year...
District 63 will be hosting its first annual “Get in Gear to Start the Year” event
on Saturday September 14, 2013 from 8:00 AM-12: 00 PM on Apollo School’s South
Field. The 3
K walk/bike/run is for students, families, community members and their
leashed pets. The event is co- sponsored by the Illinois Safe Routes to school Program (SRTS). The SRTS program encourages students to
safely walk and bike to and from school.
District 63 received a grant from SRTS in February of 2012 totaling
$160,000. The funding will help improve walking
and bicycling infrastructure (sidewalks, crosswalks, bike facilities, etc.) and
address the barriers of walking and bicycling to school.
East Maine School District 63 and its partners worked with
the Active Transportation Alliance
to create a school travel plan centered on “the Five E’s” of Safe Routes to
School: education, encouragement,
enforcement, engineering and evaluation.
The school travel plan acts as a road map designed to analyze the social
and physical barriers to walking and bicycling to District 63 schools and to
provide recommendations to make walking and bicycling to school the safe,
healthy, and convenient choice. When
applied in the right combination these strategies have been shown to increase
rates of walking and bicycling to school, decrease vehicle traffic on and around
school campus and improve safety along the route to school.
The event will host additional education on the Apollo
grounds with a bike clinic sponsored by Prospect
Bikes and Trains, Mini-Safety Town provided by District 63 TLC Program, North
Maine Community Church Volunteers on supporting education, Golf Maine Park District fall
programming, Sodexo Food Service .
