Green Streets Initiative

Haggerty School's September 2009 Walk/Ride Day Celebration

Notes from parent and coordinator, Liz Vandermark:

I made up movie ticket sized "Haggerty Mile Tickets" in denominations of 1/4 mile, 1/2 mile and 1 mile "denominations. When kids got their hands stamped, we checked where they came from (we had a Cambridge neighborhoods map that i'd scored with the miles from haggerty) and then gave each kid the appropriate number of "tickets". They then put them into our "mileage counter" (a quaker oats tube covered in green construction paper with a slit at the top). Kids were really jazzed by contibuting their miles to a Haggerty total.  (continued below)

Above, L to R: City Council Candidate Minka vanBeuzekom,  Madhvi Patil and Liz Vandermark, former and current Walk/Ride Day coordinators at the school, along with middle school kids.

Photo of our GREEN TABLE- an info table about Green Streets and about Haggerty's environmental footprint along with results from the previous month's Walk/Ride Day along with green books from the Haggerty library on display, along with our "mileage counter". 

A present kindergartener who scootered to school "voting" by entering his green miles tix into the mileage counter.

******************

(NOTES, CON'T)

We only got the kids coming in the front entry (majority but not all) and there was a lot of uploading of info so we didn't get all comers. We got many of the school bus kids, lots of walkers, scooters and bikers.....we had some great volunteers. Minka and 3 7th graders (haggerty alum who now wait at Haggerty for the Baldwin School bus).

Our Haggerty miles total for the morning was 283, so our roundtrip total for the day is 566 miles not travelled in individual cars!!! (This is actually a low ball number b/c it doesn't include the 1/4+++ mi walk many kids walk TO/FROM their homes to their bus stops).

Kids were really into the tickets and it should go more smoothly next month since now they know the drill and many will recall the mileage they logged from today. We have a big poster in the lobby with the total mileage the haggerty kids "earned" this morning. It will be exciting to build this number over the school year. It's a very concrete way for kids to feel their individual contribution turn into something BIG. (like the Margaret Mead quote.....)

There's a lot of info we can put simply in graphical ways over the months- like how many gallons that translates to for SUV's v. mid-sized cars v. hybrids, about carbon offsets etc......

Well, that's the scoop!

Enjoy this great autumn day!

- Liz Vandermark

November 9, School Coordinator's Meeting

School Coordinator's Meeting, Monday, November 9, 9-10:30 am.

Hope Kelley, longtime Walk/Ride Day coordinator at Cambridge's Baldwin School, other public and private school coordinators, and others will gather to discuss logistics in coordinating Walk/Ride Days. We will talk about coordinators' roles, recruiting new help, and ideas for making and keeping things fun and inclusive. Please come if you are a current or past coordinator and would like to share, or if you are just thinking about getting involved. Baldwin School, 28 Sacramento Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 (just north of Harvard Square, one block off Mass Ave.) If possible, RSVP so we can choose appropriate room.

Cambridge Dignitaries at Cambridge Schools on October 30, 2009 Walk/Ride Day

Wondering which Cambridge School Committee, City Council Candidate or other "dignitary" will be where on Friday?

Here're at least some of the answers, but not all info is in yet!

Amigos School: Minka vanBeuzekom

Baldwin School: Craig Kelley

Cambridgeport School: Craig Kelley

Haggerty School: Minka vanBeuzekom

Kennedy-Longfellow School: Patty Nolan and Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Jeff Young

Tobin School: Nancy Tauber

Cambridgeport Community Schools Halloween Party, 3-5 p.m., Sennot Park, Broadway at Tremont Street: Sam Seidel and Charlie Marquardt

Millennium Pharmaceuticals: Ice Cream for Going Green!

Millennium Pharmaceuticals celebrated their employees' involvement in Walk/Ride Days with an Ice Cream Social, a drawing for gift certificates from $50 to $200, a brief talk by Green Streets Director, Janie Katz-Christy and Cambridge City-Wide Coordinator, Sarah Fresco. Walk/Ride Days were introduced at Millennium in the spring of 2009 by the firm's in-house Evergreen Team. They've been very popular, and Millennium's staff had the hightest number of September '09 Walk/Riders signing in on the Green Streets website.

Millennium's Evergreen Team Organizers Christian Tolentino and Kristen Hamman

Here are some of Millennium's statistics:

• 682 survey entries were completed during this year’s program
• 71 entries (>10%) indicated they normally drive in alone
• Over 300 employees participated at least once! Over half participated more than once.
• >16,000 “green” miles were traveled (round trip in 6 days)*
• If all had driven a car alone, approximately 733 gallons of fuel would have been used,1 with 7 tons of CO2 emissions or
• the average annual emissions of 1.2 vehicles!**

Three lucky raffle winners got more than ice cream as American Express gift cards were awarded at the event. Throughout the program, several other participants won cafeteria vouchers during monthly raffle drawings. 

* The Federal Highway Administration’s gives average values of 22.1 mpg for passenger cars as a fleet wide average in for the year 2001 (http://www.epa.gov/OMS/climate/420f05004.htm)
** The EPA calculates that 19.4 pounds of CO2 is generated per gallon of gasoline (http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climate/420f05001.htm)

 

Ice cream with all the toppings!

Raffle winners who regularly use green transport, including riding the train, running, and biking (and some combinations thereof!) to work!