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26 - The Oakville Beaver, Friday April 11, 2008 Walking program promotes healthy lifestyle for kids Walking in our communities has become increasingly difficult. The once common trips that were made on foot or bike have been substituted by the automobile. Unsafe street crossings, increased speed of the automobiles on the road, lack of connectivity between neighbourhoods and the design of our built environment are some of the factors that limit many children's ability to walk or bicycle to school. These unwalkable environments have decreased the number of children walking and have increased the number of parents driving their kids to school. Parents have the opportunity to increase their children's daily physical activity, improve local air quality, and create safer neighbourhoods, by having their neighbourhood schools adopt and implement the Active and Safe Routes to School (ASRTS) program. ASRTS is a comprehensive program that promotes safe, walkable communities. It engages both the school and its community to work together to make safe walking routes a reality for all children. ASRTS is promoted by Green Communities Canada and the three main concepts of the ASRTS program are: · establishing safe routes to school by creating supportive infrastructure and initiatives that ensure student safety; · decreasing idling and emissions This year, ASRTS program is being piloted by the Halton Region Health Department in partnership with the Halton District School Board. The pilot will see eight schools across the Region implementing Walking School Buses and other ASRTS initiatives, starting this fall. Two Oakville schools, E.J. James Public School and Maple Grove Public School, are participating in the pilot. According to Jennifer Jenkins, Health Promoter for Halton Region Health Department and the project manager for the pilot, planning began in August 2007 when the ASRTS Steering Committee was formed. On April 3, schools attended a kickoff forum at the Regional Centre where they began planning specifically for their schools. "The pilot schools have organized school area walkabouts for April and May," explains Jenkins, who played a key role in organizing the initiative. "The walkabouts will give the schools an opportunity to identify infrastructure changes that can increase safe walking." The longterm goal of the project being that all students in Halton have an opportunity to use active and safe routes to school. If you are interested in increasing your child's daily physical activity, improving by having children walk to school and/or having parents drop their children a block away so they can walk in; · increasing physical activity by having children walk to school. The walking school bus is one of the initiatives involved in the ASRTS program. A walking school bus is as simple as a group of children walking to school with one or more adults. It can be as informal as two families taking turns walking their children to school to as structured as a route with meeting points, a timetable and a regularly rotated schedule of trained volunteers. A study by Green Communities Canada indicates that if just nine families participate regularly in a walking school bus over the course of a school year, they can collectively prevent almost 1,000 kg of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere. HALTON REGION PHOTO WALK ON: Regional Chair Gary Carr, left, Halton District School Board Chair Gillian Tuck Kutarna, middle, and Halton Regional Police Chief Gary Crowell help launch the Active and Safe Routes to School program. local air quality, and creating Choices 4 Health is one of 37 safer neighbourhoods then con- community partnerships that sider implementing one of the comprise the Ontario Heart eight initiatives of the ASRTS Health Program-- Taking Action program. For more information for Healthy Living. Funding is on Active and Safe Routes to provided by the Ontario Ministry School visit http://www.safer- of Health Promotion and outestoschool.ca/. matched in kind by community Active and Safe Routes to partners and the Halton Region School is funded in part by Health Department. Choices 4 Health. For more The Choices 4 Health information, about Choices 4 Network is a community coaliHealth and its funded programs, tion comprised of over 250 indivisit http://choices4health.org or viduals and organizations workcall the Choices 4 Health ing together to promote healthy Coordinator at 905-825-6000 lifestyles in Halton. ext. 7344. --Submitted by Choices 4 Health F NEWS When you subscribe to The Oa $10.00 Pre-paid Tim Card from Ti And.... your name will be entered GET IT WHILE IT To subscribe simply fill in the f and send it, along with your p to The Oakville Beaver Circulat by April 30th, 2008. 467 Speers Rd. 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