Fill the Racks! 2012 at McDonald Elementary

Our Fill the Racks was a success, despite the snow and us running out of hot cocoa early (no doubt due to the snow). The hot cocoa is such a hit that we give it out at each event…and with the snow this time, it was good we did!

We also gave out the bracelets and tons and tons of the punch cards and got new interest sparked in our kids again. We also gave the first biker to show up her choice of prizes from the prize bag- she chose a bike bell and LOVED it!

The next 6 weeks are going to be full of walking, biking and scootering kids and teachers! I saw at about 15-20 teachers come to school on bikes or walk- that is 1/3 of our staff! I love that we have such great support at our school with the kids and the whole crew.  It really makes a difference when they “practice what they preach”. We plan to make weekly announcements and give away prizes and trinkets for kids who fill cards and turn them in.

All of my UI volunteers were great. We gave away all of our extra helmets (we received from Safe Routes from winning the Principal estimates competition last last Fill the Racks!) to kids who needed them. No one was saying no to the huge football players scolding kids for showing up on bikes without helmets! 🙂 The UI football players were cheerful and awesome even though I know they were all little football popsicles. My bicyclists were wonderful again this year as well. Our bike train was a little scattered, but I had an extra parent follow the majority of the group to school in his car just to make sure they all arrived safely.

Next year it would be helpful (weather permitting) to let one or two of the UI volunteers know to bring a bike, so that I can put one of them at the corner to lead the train. Other walking events are fine because they can just show up and help, but in this one instance, no one had a bike because they are used to just helping out at the scene, which was totally fine and good too, I would have just loved having one of them be the train leader this time instead of a parent.  Oh well, something to note for next year.

The kids love when the college students are there talking to them and leading the groups. Both sets of UI volunteers (members of the UI cycling team and football team) emailed me before today, so that was PERFECT! I love being able to just touch base with them before the event. I’ll let you know when I get some more pictures.

-Stacey