For many children in the Birmingham area, streets are unsafe to walk and sidewalks can be few and far between. Besides safety concerns, children are not getting enough physical activity in their day. This is where the Safe Routes to School initiative, implemented by United Way of Central Alabama’s Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities (HKHC) and funded by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, comes in.

The National Center for Safe Routes to School (www.saferoutesinfo.org) is focused on improving children’s safety while walking and biking to school. Here in Jefferson County, the HKHC’s Safe Routes to School initiative is also addressing issues of childhood obesity and social interaction with the Walking School Bus.
 

“We go in and map out the safest way for children to walk to school for about three-quarters of a mile from their school,” says Kadie Whatley, project coordinator for HKHC. Once routes are established, stops are chosen where children in the neighborhood can gather to be “picked up” by the walking bus. The YMCA of Greater Birmingham trains adults from the community to be leaders on the walking bus route.
 

“This is additional time for kids to get physical activity, and hopefully meet that recommendation of 60 minutes of daily physical activity,” says Whatley. “That activity in the morning can help kids arrive to school alert and ready to learn. Also, a bonus benefit is that it gets these kids to school on time and they can take advantage of the free or reduced breakfast.”
 

Currently, three Birmingham-area schools are participating in the Walking School Bus program: Hemphill Elementary in West End, Hudson K-8 in Collegeville and Robinson Elementary in East Lake. The Walking School Bus program will be offered each Wednesday through November 16, and will start up again in the spring of 2012.
 

“The next step for the program is working with the schools to see what works best and how the program can be improved,” says Whatley. “We hope to gain some more momentum, and eventually have a model where parents and community members take over the program.”
 

Community is a crucial part of the Safe Routes to School initiative. “When we were meeting with folks last year, we kept hearing that there was a disconnect between neighbors and community,” says Amanda Storey, assistant vice president of Community Health and Wellness at United Way of Central Alabama. “People remembered knowing their neighbors, of feeling safe letting their kids play in the neighborhood. As we kept hearing that, we started thinking about this walking school bus idea. It could be run by church members, parents, people who are cornerstones in the neighborhood. Children could know that there are safe places to go in the neighborhood if there’s danger.”
 

Storey says an added benefit of the walking school bus is that it affects policy change. “Once you start on that trail with the kids you can see the sidewalks that need to be fixed, the rundown houses in the neighborhood, things like that,” Storey says. “If people in the community see it for themselves then they can advocate for change. What better way to communicate those policy changes than to have children participate?”
 

In May, Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities was awarded a $6,500 grant from the Kresge Arts in Birmingham initiative, administered by the Cultural Alliance of Greater Birmingham. Storey says kids on the walking school bus routes will be equipped with cameras and can document their walk to school, their neighborhood, and the interesting people, places and things they see. At the end of the project, there will be a celebration featuring the kids’ photographs.

For more about the program, visit www.uwca.org. The Safe Routes to School Program is administered by a partnership between UWCA, the Jefferson County Department of Health, YMCA of Greater Birmingham, Regional Planning Commission of Greater Birmingham and the Health Action Partnership.