By Alexa Little and Cole Villena

 

Walk to School Day is always one of our favorite days of the year. This year was no different! Thousands of students participated across 68 registered schools. According to our records, that makes this our biggest celebration since we started in 1999!

Visit our Facebook page for photos from around the county!

Neighborhood Engagement Coordinator Alexa Little, who spearheaded our planning and organization this year, said that what made this year special was the amount of excitement amongst schools. Not only did we have schools reaching out who couldn’t wait for the sign up to open, but several schools signed up multiple times, just to make sure!

"I’m also super proud of the amount of schools that signed up,” said Alexa. “It took a lot of individual outreach, but it paid off.”

The event also showed a clear desire for better walking paths near these schools. In our post-event surveys, the majority of schools specifically wrote that they wanted more sidewalks to make walking to school safer both on Walk to School Day and year-round.

It takes a lot of outreach and follow-up to pull an event like this off. We reach out directly to schools, teachers, Metro Nashville Public Schools admin, neighborhood associations, public officials, and even team mascots. Then we help create social media postings, send requests to be added into school and principal newsletters, and provide logistical support for new schools and teachers.

We also order and coordinate delivery for print materials like shirts, banners, and stickers for each school. This year, we ordered over 10,000 stickers for students to proudly wear all day in school!

Each school had their own way of celebrating.

Stratford High School in Inglewood invited their band to march through the neighborhood. Tennessee Titans mascot T-Rac welcomed students to school at Robert Churchwell Museum Magnet Elementary School, while Nashville SC’s Tempo did the same at Whitsitt Elementary School. The Nashville Department of Transportation & Multimodal Infrastructure handed out goodies at Carter-Lawrence Elementary School.

This year, our team joined the celebrations at Whitsitt and Robert Churchwell. These schools have been huge supporters of Walk to School Day for many years, and we were delighted to start our mornings with them.

“Whitsitt has always been a great partner for us, and their lead, Kevin Terry, is an amazing advocate for walking and biking,” said Alexa, who greeted students along with Meredith, and Izi. “He has logistics down to a science and knows how to get the students and teachers excited for the event.”

We’re grateful for the public officials and organizations who made time to celebrate with our schools, including:

  • Mark Bennett (Metro Nashville Police Department)
  • Clay Capp (Metro Council)
  • Candice Evans (Metro Nashville Public Schools)
  • Bob Freeman (Tennessee House of Representatives)
  • Jennifer Gamble (Metro Council)
  • Brenda Gilmore
  • Jeff Gregg (Metro Council)
  • Canzada Kelley Hawkins
  • Karen Johnson (Davidson County Register of Deeds)
  • Harold Love (Tennessee House of Representatives)
  • Zach Lykins (Trinity Community Commons)
  • Nashville Department of Transportation & Multimodal Infrastructure Vision Zero Team
  • Berthena Nabaa-McKinney (Metro Nashville School Board)
  • Stratford Marching Legion
  • TSU Aristocrat of Bands
  • Vivian Wilhoite (Davidson County Property Assessor)
  • Zach Young (Metro Nashville School Board)

Thanks to all the participating schools, families, and neighborhoods for making this year’s Walk to School Day an outstanding success! We can’t wait for an even bigger celebration next year!