Shelburne School Wins National Award
 

 

The Shelburne Community School has been named a "Green Ribbon School" by the US Department of Education in recognition of its "exemplary efforts to reduce environmental impact and utility costs, promote better health, and ensure effective environmental education, including civics and green career pathways."

According to the press release announcing the award, one of the reasons SCS received this recognition is because of its successful promotion of "walking/biking/hiking to school as a viable option both impacting health through fitness and lessening the impact of buses and cars." Not just walking to school, but HIKING! We love it.

SCS was one of three schools in Vermont and only 64 nationwide to be so honored. Congratulations, Shelburne!   

Local Motion has been working with Shelburne for several years to promote walking and biking to school in partnership with VT Safe Routes To School. SCS makes regular use of the Kohl's Kids Bike Smart trailer, training third graders in bike skills via PE classes.   

We also collaborate closely with the Shelburne Paths Committee on planning for new facilities and organizing the Shelburne Bike Fest every May. Congrats to outgoing Paths Chair Rob Donahue for his many years of service!

Are you involved with an elementary or middle school where you'd like the kids to learn safe bike riding skills? We can help! 

Through the generous support of Kohl's Cares, we are able to provide a trailer full of 45 kids bikes and helmets to schools across the state. We just finished a great week in Highgate, VT!

We're already booked through the summer. If your school wants BikeSmart this fall, have your school sign up soon!

Thanks to mega-volunteer Nic Anderson who volunteered countless hours to coordinate the re-branding, re-signing and re-designing of the route and all its materials.   

Thanks to JDK for providing such great branding services.  Thanks to Preservation Burlington and Burlington Walk/Bike Council for funding the printed materials and this launch party.  Thanks also to Burlington Parks and Recreation, Public Works, Skinny Pancake, One Revolution and all the volunteers (you know who you are).  

According to the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission, these three Chittenden County municipalities were recently awarded $250,000 grants from VTrans to develop shared-use paths in there communities.  The funded projects were:  

Thank you to VTrans for continuing to recognize the importance of our non-motorized transportation system.  

We all know that an active lifestyle helps us physically and mentally.  In a great collaboration with the Sustainability Academy, the VT Energy Investment Corporation and VT Community Foundation we are working with the students at the Sustainability Academy and their parents to help everyone in our community enjoy an active lifestyle.   

We hosted a very successful Bike Fest in late April and hosted skill challenge stations (above), ran a community bike swap, and provided dozens of bikes to the school courtesy of our own Bike Recycle Vermont!