Hopefully you have noticed but maybe while you weren’t looking our area schools have become big time incubators for little rippers. That’s right, in the City of Harrisonburg and in Rockingham County, nearly every school has bicycles to use with their physical education program. It started largely with the area high schools and then in 2014-2015 several elementary schools were able to purchase bikes because of our rock star Safe Routes to School program (read about 100 bikes for our area schools).
Physically placing the bikes in the schools is only part of the equation. Once the bikes are in the schools then the P.E. teachers need help in teaching classes and programming for the bikes. Luckily for our area, Sentara RMH employs two wonderful individuals who have contributed greatly to growing biking in our schools. Becky Johnston and Nathan Barge are Bicycle Rock Stars who are doing great things in our community and recently helped encourage Rockingham County Public Schools to apply for a Safe Routes to School grant to fund another position focused on increasing biking and walking in Rockingham County schools.
The SVBC identified a number of key goals and initiatives for 2014-2015 (Read our goals). Among those priorities was a commitment to ensure that our Local Safe Routes to School programs were continued and strengthened. To that end we (the SVBC Board and others) have worked to ensure that Becky and Nathan have adequate resources to continue growing biking in our schools. What this looks like is always changing. In some cases volunteers are the biggest need, other times the SVBC is able to provide incentives for individual schools to apply for mini-grants to secure bikes, sometimes it comes down to funding larger projects and iniatives, like a shed to store bikes.
In this case, Waterman elementary received 30 plus bikes (combination of 20″ wheel and Strider balance bikes) through the grant success of the Safe Routes to School Program but had nowhere to store them. With a very steep hill between the school and the track where kids ride bikes, the P.E. teachers knew they wanted a shed next to the track but the school did not have any funds for a shed and the Safe Routes to School program had exhausted their funds for the year. So the bikes sat in the Sentara RMH atrium waiting for a storage place at Waterman. Fortunately, the SVBC was able to purchase a shed built locally by the Massanutten Technical Institute and have it delivered to Waterman Elementary School!
We couldn’t be more excited to help support all of the great bicycle related initiatives that are happening in our area schools thanks to Nathan and Becky!
