Promoting good health, community: Kids have fun on Walk, Bike & Roll to School Day

WESTMINSTER — Struggling to contain their excitement, students lined up in rows behind their teachers, waiting for their music teacher, Kris Lucander, to finally reach them and play "Charge" on his trumpet — their signal to begin their longer-than-usual walk to school.

Westminster Elementary School and Meetinghouse School students are among the thousands of students across the country taking part in the Walk, Bike & Roll to School Day event this month. Good health is the message.

"It's fabulous. This is the community stuff that we've been missing," said Principal Kathleen Taylor. "I think the connections with the community is so important for the kids — they get to see the fire (fighters), the police, the parents — it's a great way to bring our community together and celebrate all the goodness going on."

Four other schools in Worcester County were registered to participate in the event including Belmont Street Community School in Worcester, Fannie E. Proctor Elementary School in Northborough, Mary E. Finn School in Southborough and Briggs Elementary in Ashburnham.

For Lucander, being able to play "Charge" and different tunes throughout the event helps make sure the day is extra fun, he said.

"Not only is it promoting good health, but, for the kids, it's something that they're going to remember for a long time," he said.

For some parents, like Courtney-Rose McGee, the event presented an opportunity to make it a family event by bringing her young daughter along to walk with her two sons, a second grader and third grader.

"My daughter wanted to join her siblings, so I figured I'd walk with her older brother's class, which I thought would be really cool," McGee said.

A new experience

McGee said that since many kids in the community do not walk to school, the event not only allowed them to bond with friends and the community, but also gain new experiences.

"I had to walk to school, so I know it was like to, but many of these kids don't," McGee said. "It gives them something exciting and different to do."

McGee’s son Jackson said he was excited to walk with his family that morning and that he has fun looking for his teachers when he arrives.

"It’s cool," he said. "It’s much more shorter this time."

Standing with his teachers, Kristen Smith and Kelsey Mellekas, a third grader named Emmett said he was excited to see all of the police and fire workers who were on the scene to help the students arrive at the schools safely.

He said that he was excited to walk with his teachers and count the police vehicles along the way.

"It’s amazing they can participate in this with other kids, not just their little group," Smith said.

Dealing with COVID-19

Smith, who has been participating in the walks for five years, and Mellekas for three, said it was important to have events like this to help students get back into a routine after the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Anything (to) get back into the routine and make it feel more like a school community is a step in the right direction," Mellekas said. "You can feel the energy in the school for sure."

Starting off behind the VFW, students and teachers walked down the sidewalks of Main Street towards their schools with fifth graders starting and the rest of the grades following after.

Parents and community members lined up alongside the path to cheer for the students, with one person wearing a chicken costume and another wearing a costume of a minion from the movie "Despicable Me."

The 'Chicken Dance' fills the air

Lucander continued to play "Charge" for the students, with the exception of the moment when the group passed a person in a chicken costume, during which he played the "Chicken Dance" on his trumpet.

Teachers and students tried to elicit honks from truck drivers passing by, with one first-grade teacher, Pamela Terry, promising students an extra five minutes at recess if they could get a large truck or vehicle to honk at them.

"It's just such a connection. Connection builds so many bridges and it prevents so many things from happening to these kids," Terry said. "It’s just awesome that they can be a part of their community and these kids feel so involved and not detached from it. It's really cool that they feel responsible for the success of their community."

While he can’t remember exactly when the district first began participating in the event, Superintendent Todd Stewart said it has been for at least a decade.

He said it was a "great community-building opportunity," and a way to create excitement about going to school for the students.

"We want school to be a positive learning place," Stewart said. "We want kids to hop off the bus or out of the car excited to be here and so I think the more sort of supplemental things we can do to the core learning experience the better."

After having only received honks from cars and small trucks, Terry’s class had one chance left to get five extra minutes of recess by convincing a firefighter across the street from the school to blare the horn of a fire engine.

Running to the truck amid cheers and chants from the students, the firefighter made it just in time to honk the engine’s horn and help the students secure those five extra minutes.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Westminster kids join 1000s across on Walk, Bike & Roll to School Day