May is nearly here, and so is the Walk+Bike to School Challenge. The Walk + Bike Challenge is a friendly competition aimed at encouraging more kids and families to walk and bike to and from school and throughout their neighborhoods.

We’d like to encourage families to bike or walk to school Wednesday, May 6th! We will also have some SWCS families that will be meeting up at locations in Sellwood & John’s Landing that morning, that you can join up with, and bike to school together.

We have a couple of parents that are leading groups that morning. If you’d like to lead a group from a different location (i.e. NE PDX), please send me an email and I’ll get your info added! (Christina Cartwright cartwrightx7@gmail.com)

Sellwood/SE group – Sarah Gilmore fourgilmoresinpdx@gmail.com

John’s Landing/The River & Nebraska St – Sarah Mutal sarah@mutal.net

A little more about this challenge:

The Challenge is hosted by the Bicycle Transportation Alliance (BTA) with support from the Oregon Department of Transportation (ODOT), the City of Portland Bureau of Transportation (PBOT), and other partners.

During the Challenge, school coordinators track the number of students biking, walking, and skating to school throughout the month. At the end of the Challenge, prizes go to the schools that log the most biking trips, the most walking trips, largest total number of students walking and biking, and highest percentage of students (out of the total school population) walking and biking. This remarkable trend is a reflection of the public’s commitment to investing in safe biking and walking routes, education, and encouragement programs like the Walk + Bike Challenge. The trend is also seen in communities around the state as Oregon is the national leader in overall participation in Walk + Bike events.