How to Create a Walking Project in Your School
How to Begin:
The first and most important step is to identify and start a conversation among community members who are knowledgeable and interested in children’s health. This can include health professionals such as a pediatrician, family practitioner, nurse and/or public health professional, dietician, physical fitness instructor, local hospital employee, a non-profit director, and individuals or parents who have a background in physical fitness, nutrition or environmental stewardship. It is also helpful if there is someone who has a school connection such as a teacher, school nurse or PTO/PTA officer.
The next step is to gather those interested individuals to discuss if the goals and objectives of the Walking Project are consistent with those necessary to address the needs of the children in your community. If they are, then the format and implementation of the project should be reviewed (outlined below) and, if necessary, tailored to the specifics of your school and community. Identify a group of committed individuals who can then serve on the Walking Project committee.
Initial Organization:
- Meet with the school’s administrator to explain the goals and format of the Walking Project. Decide what grade(s) is most suitable. For small schools, the entire student body can participate. The administrator should select a group of possible school staff to be involved in organizing and implementing the project such as teacher(s) from the selected grade(s), PE teacher, school nurse, health teacher, science teacher, food service director, etc.
- Form an official Walking Project Committee of the committed community members and the school group. Make a contact list of all members with their contact information. Set up the first meeting. It’s usually best to meet at the school to make it easier for the school staff to attend.
- Set-up an account with a non-profit entity that can act as the fiduciary for the deposit of the sponsors’ funds and allow you to draw upon those funds to pay for the necessary equipment and materials. The sponsors’ donation would then be tax deductible. (The United Way offered to act as our fiduciary and has been involved ever since.)
TIMELINE TASK LISTS
Meeting #1: 4-6 months prior to the start of the Walking Project
- Choose the 4-week period of the Walking Project and set dates for the opening and closing assemblies. It should be when the weather is conducive to being outside and when there are no weeklong vacations that interfere. Possible considerations include planning around special dates that promote the Walking Project’s concepts such as Earth Day, TV Turn-off Week or National Nutrition Month.
• The opening assembly kicks off the program with the step tallying beginning
on that day. We found that having the opening assembly on a Wednesday
gives you the two days before to finish organizing the event and distribute
pedometers and other materials to the classrooms.
• The closing assembly is best scheduled a couple of days after the step
tallying has ended in order to give the teachers time to collect their class’s
step tally for that last week and get it to the compiler. We found that ending
the step tally on a Wednesday (for a total of 29 days of walking) and having
the closing assembly on that Friday worked well.
- Decide on the color or theme that will represent this year’s WP. The T-shirts, pedometers, posters/banners and copier paper can be coordinated to reflect the chosen color/theme.
- Set a mileage goal for the students. Depending on your school, this may or may not be something you want to do. Our first year we did not set a goal. This allowed us to see how the project played out without any expectations. It also gave us an idea of what the students were capable of achieving. Now we set an approximate goal of 5 miles/day/student.
Meeting #2: 3 months prior to the start of the Walking Project
- Calculate the amount of money needed to successfully run the WP. You will have to do some research first before you can determine how much money you will need. The main expenses (75%) are the pedometers and T-shirts for students, teachers and sponsors. Additional expenses include: achievement tokens, sponsors participation posters, educational materials, thank-you gifts for the teachers, a banner, and possible supplies for the opening and closing assemblies (balloons, food for the sponsors, etc.). Add everything up, divide by the number of classrooms participating and you will have the approximate gold sponsor amount per classroom. (Sample Budget)
- Determine who will be the WP treasurer. This person will track the donations (with the sponsor liaison) and expenses and work with the non-profit agency acting as the fiduciary.
- Choose several committee members to be sponsor liaisons. Their main responsibility is to be the liaison between the sponsors and the rest of the WP committee and their duties include: drafting the solicitation letter and distributing it to businesses and organizations, receiving the responses and donation money, organizing sponsor contact information, keeping a ledger on the donations received, and communicating any important information (such as dates and times) to the sponsors. See Sponsorship and Sponsor Liaison for detailed information on the responsibilities of the liaison and instructions on how to carry out those duties.
- Determine if there are any people in the community that might willingly contribute to some of the creative or logistical aspects of the WP such as designing and/or procuring the T-shirts, designing and/or printing the posters, teaching the “Eating well” or “Environmental awareness” class, speaking at the opening assembly, etc. Contact them and ask if they are willing to volunteer their time and talent.
- Determine which school committee members will the orchestrate the project within the school: Who will total the classes’ weekly step tally and how will it be displayed? Who will be the “go to” teacher that the other participating teachers can contact with questions, problems, etc? How can the Art, Music and PE teachers be involved and teach Walking Project related themes during their classes?
Meeting #3: 2 months prior to the Walking Project
- Assess sponsorship and donations received. If the number of gold sponsors needed has not been met, identify additional possible business and organizations and solicit in person or send out letters. Review currently available funds.
- Design T-shirts. Each participating student, teacher and gold sponsor receives a T-shirt at the end of the Walking Project to wear at the closing assembly. It can be designed by a committee or community member with your logo on the front and a list of the sponsors on the back. Optimally, the design should reflect the three E’s. Alternatively, you may use the Walking Project logo on your T-shirts. (See Walking Project Logo).
- Design sponsor participation posters. Each gold and silver sponsor will receive a Walking Project participation poster to display at their place of business publicly showing their support of the project. Each gold sponsor’s poster will be signed by the students (first names only) in his/her class and given to him/her after the opening assembly. The silver sponsors’ posters are distributed by the sponsor liaison. The design should incorporate the color, theme or logo the committee has chosen. These all need to be printed before the opening assembly. (Sample Sponsor Participation Poster)
- Compose and distribute first letter home to parents of participating students. This is sent from the school and introduces the program and explains its objectives, format, dates, and the involvement of community businesses in supporting their children’s efforts.
(Sample 1st Parent Letter)
Meeting #4: 4-6 weeks prior
- Ensure you have enough gold sponsors for each class and match them each with a specific classroom, honoring any requests from teachers or the sponsor themselves.
- Send out gold sponsor confirmation letters. This letter identifies the classroom with which the sponsor is partnered, outlines the project’s dates, gives details about the opening assembly and gives a list of suggestions for sponsor-classroom interactions.
(Sample Sponsor Confirmation Letter)
(Sample Sponsor-Classroom Interactions List) - Set a meeting date for participating classroom teachers. At this meeting, the teachers will receive a packet that will give them the necessary information and materials they’ll need for the project, their sponsor’s name and contact information, and ideas for lesson plans. It should take place 2-4 weeks prior to the start of the project. (See Meeting #5 section).
- Discuss the logistics of the Eating Well and Environmental Awareness lessons. These classes/presentations should take place during the 4-week period of the WP to reinforce that the 3 E’s work synergistically to build good health. The factors to consider are:
• Who in your school or community can teach the class? Possible volunteers
for the Eating Well class could be a registered dietician affiliated with the
school, local hospital or other community organization, the food service director,
health educator, nurse or pediatrician. Possible volunteers for the
Environmental Awareness class could be a Science teacher, naturalist, director
of a local non-profit environmental organization or community member
knowledgeable in environmental stewardship.
• How will it be taught? Last year our project involved 16 classrooms, so we
paired up the classes and taught eight one-hour sessions on Eating Well one
week and then did the same for Environmental Awareness the following week.
Since these were hands-on presentations, they were taught in the multi-
purpose room so the props and posters could stay set up throughout the week.
- Plan Opening Assembly. The main purpose of the assembly is to kick off the Walking Project, explain its purpose and goals, and introduce the sponsors to their respective classrooms. It also serves to generate enthusiasm for what the students will experience during the ensuing four weeks. Its format is left up to the creativity of the committee members. (Sample Opening Assembly Program)
• When does it take place? The assembly should be on the first day of the WP
and initiates the step tallying. It’s best to have it in the morning so the sponsors
can participate before going to work. An informal gold sponsor welcome
reception (muffins, fruit, beverage) just before the assembly is a wonderful way
for these community members to meet each other. (See "Day of the Opening
Assembly" section below for a sample schedule).
• Who participates? The participating students, teachers, sponsors, members
of the WP committee, and school administrators and faculty. Community
members who are contributing in any way and parents of participating students
are invited as well (see Meeting #6 section).
• What does the assembly entail? The students and their teachers assemble
in the gym or auditorium and one of school committee members welcomes
everyone and explains the purpose and framework of the WP. This can be
followed by any type of program that highlights what the students can expect to
experience during the course of the WP. The final part of the assembly,
however, involves introducing each class to their sponsor. With the sponsors
sitting together in the front of the gym and the individual classrooms sitting in
pods throughout the rest of the room, the sponsor liaison committee member
calls out the name of a classroom teacher and the sponsor who is matched with
that classroom. The sponsor of that class identifies himself/herself and a
student from that class escorts the sponsor back to where the rest of the class
is sitting. After all the sponsors have been paired with their classes, the
assembly is dismissed, and sponsors go to “their” classrooms for them to
personally meet the students and receive their poster.
- Determine the process for tallying steps and who keeps the record of the totals. Although the teachers orchestrate the step tallying in their individual classrooms, there should be one designated faculty member that receives all the classroom totals (usually on a weekly basis), compiles them and displays the cumulative total in whatever way the WP committee has decided.
- Order pedometers. The best model for this type of project is the SM2000. It is fairly reliable and sturdy, and relatively inexpensive ($3-$4 each) through www.pedometersUSA.com. They come in a variety of colors and depending on where you order them from, come with a 30-day warranty (for the occasional dud). Order enough for all students, teachers and sponsors plus an additional 10%. In addition, our PTO-run school store bought a bulk amount for participating students to purchase (at cost) if they lost or broke theirs, or if school staff, non-participating students or parents wanted to buy one.
Meeting #5: 3-4 weeks prior
- Conduct the participating teacher meeting and distribute teacher packets. (see the "For Educators" section for this information).
- Order incentive tokens. These tokens are meant to inspire the students and commend them on putting forth their best effort. We ordered colored feet charms (called toe tokens) and colored 6” chains for the students to put them on. The teachers distributed them at different points during the project: one token after the opening assembly and one token after each week of step tallying. In addition, each student received a representative token after the Eating Well (broccoli) and Environmental (tree) lessons. We ordered ours through www.fitnessfinders.net.
- Order sponsor participation posters. The gold and silver sponsors’ posters should be ordered to allow enough time for them to be printed before the opening assembly.
Meeting #6: 1-2 weeks prior
- Confirm date and time of opening assembly with sponsors and address any questions or logistical concerns (parking, security, etc).
- Invite parents of participating students to the opening assembly. The school should do this in whichever way is best for them (via school website, email, letter, etc).
- Organize pedometers and incentive tokens for distribution to each classroom. Each class should receive enough pedometers and tokens for the teacher and all the students with a few extra to replace defective ones. For each class, group the feet tokens in baggies and label each with their distribution date (the schedule is in the teacher packet). The tokens for the Eating Well and Environmental Awareness lessons are given to the students after they have participated by person doing the presentation. We delivered each classroom’s package of pedometers and tokens 1-2 days before the opening assembly. This avoided potential problems for the teachers of storage or misplacement.
- Collect each classroom’s T-shirt order form and order the T-shirts. In the teacher’s packet is a form for the teacher to write each student’s name and their T-shirt size as well as their own. The WP committee then totals by size all the T-shirts needed including those for the sponsors, any school staff that the committee feels should get a T-shirt and the WP committee members themselves. The order is placed for delivery 1-2 weeks prior to the closing assembly.
- Contact the local newspaper or publicity agency to cover the opening assembly.
- Create a handout or program that details the agenda for the opening assembly and lists all the gold and silver sponsors. This is distributed to sponsors and parents at the assembly. (Sample Opening Assembly Program)
- Determine logistics for gold sponsor reception. Where will it be held? What food should be available and who will provide it? We invited our sponsors to the teacher’s lounge 30 minutes before the assembly for muffins, fresh fruit, tea, coffee and water. The school’s food service and PTO provided the beverages and paper goods and the committee members provided the food.
To do 1-2 days before the assembly:
- Distribute the pedometers, incentive tokens and gold sponsor participation posters to the individual classrooms. These are then given out after the opening assembly. The students are given their pedometers by either their teacher or the sponsor. (The sponsors’ receive their pedometers by the WP committee at the sponsor reception). The students receive their first toe token and the chain from their sponsor as a sign of encouragement and support. The sponsor participation poster is signed by the students and given to the sponsor for he/she to display at their place of business.
- Print out opening assembly program. Print these on paper the color you have chosen for your project.
Day of the Opening Assembly
- Organize and set up for the sponsor reception and assembly to ensure that all runs smoothly.
An example of the schedule might look like this:
8:45 – 9:10 Gold sponsor reception in Teachers’ Lounge
9:15 – 9:40 Opening assembly in gym with explanation of the program
to students and introduction of sponsors
9:45 – 10:15 Classroom visitation by sponsors for introductions and poster
signing.
Responsibilities include:
• Setting up the sponsor reception room
- Food and beverages
- Sponsor pedometers
- Printed opening assembly program
• Setting up the assembly room
- Seating for each classroom
- Seating for the sponsors
- Microphone
• Greeting the sponsors as they enter the school, signing them in, and escorting
them to the reception.
• During the reception, saying some brief words of welcome and appreciation
for their participation in the project. Distribution of pedometers.
• Escorting the sponsors to their seats in the assembly room.
• Clean up after the assembly.
- Distribute silver sponsor posters. Silver sponsors receive their participation poster when they come to the assembly. If they cannot attend, the sponsor liaison should bring the poster to their place of business for them to display.
During month-long program
- Send second letter home to parents. This letter explains that the program is underway and shows which organization or business is sponsoring their child’s classroom. It also serves to invite the parents to the closing assembly. (Sample 2nd parent letter)
- Maintain a weekly tally of the total number of steps. In our school, the classroom teachers had the students record their daily step tally. At the end of each week, each classroom handed in their total to the PE teacher who compiled everyone’s numbers. They used various methods of displaying the total number of miles walked each week: A thermometer with the “goal” at the top; A map tracking how far the students “traveled”, etc.
- Take photos of students walking with their sponsors and during the Eating Well and Environmental Awareness presentations. These can be used for press releases, presentations or during the closing assembly.
- Organize/hold a “T-shirt party” once the T-shirts are in. Using the information on the original T-Shirt order forms (distributed in the teacher packet at meeting #5 and collected at meeting #6), group the T-shirts into bags by classroom and deliver them to their respective classrooms before the closing assembly. The teachers can then distribute the T-shirts the morning of the assembly for the students to wear.
- Plan the Closing Assembly. The purpose of the closing assembly is to congratulate the students on their success and to celebrate the collective achievement of both school and community. It culminates with the unveiling of the total miles walked.
• When does it take place? It’s best planned for several days after the final
day of step tallying. Like the opening assembly, it should be in the morning
and can be preceded by an informal sponsor appreciation reception. This
allows the sponsors to share their experiences with each other and receive
their T-shirts to be worn at the assembly.
• Who participates? Same as the opening assembly.
• What does the assembly entail? Every Walking Project will have different
outcomes both measurable and intangible. The closing assembly program
should be a celebration that reflects that uniqueness. Selected sponsors can
speak about classroom successes or how the efforts of the students inspired
them. Students can demonstrate what they learned by creating dances,
poems, cheers or posters. The culmination of the assembly should be the
unveiling of the total number of miles/steps walked. - Remind sponsors of the closing assembly date/time.
- Print closing assembly programs. (Sample Closing Assembly Program)
- Calculate the “Final Tally” to be announced at the closing ceremony. This is done between the last day of tallying and the closing assembly. A sign with the final number of miles/steps walked should be made for unveiling at the closing assembly. In our school, the Art teachers created the sign.
- Contact the local newspaper or publicity agency to cover the closing assembly.
Day of Closing Assembly
- The schedule and responsibilities are similar to the opening assembly’s with only a few minor changes.
8:45 – 9:10 Gold sponsor reception in Teachers’ Lounge
9:15 – 9:40 Closing assembly in gym focusing on appreciation
of the sponsors and celebration of everyone’s achievements.
Unveiling of the total steps/miles walked.
9:45 – 10:15 Sponsors may choose to go to their classrooms for a
final visit or walk around the track.
Responsibilities include:
• Setting up the sponsor reception room
- Food and beverages
- Sponsor T-shirts
- Printed closing assembly program
• Setting up the assembly room
- Seating for each classroom
- Seating for the sponsors
- Microphone and any AV equipment needed.
• Greeting the sponsors as they enter the school, signing them in, and
escorting them to the reception.
• During the reception, saying some brief words of appreciation for their
support of the students’ effort during the Walking Project. Distribution of
T-shirts to be worn at the assembly.
• Escorting the sponsors to their seats in the assembly room.
• Clean up after the assembly.
- Deliver teacher thank-you gifts to the classrooms. Thank-you gifts are usually donated and have included potted herbs, reusable shopping bags and gift certificates.
Within one week after the program
- Send thank-you letters to all sponsors: Gold, Silver and “In-Kind”.
(Sample Gold Sponsor Thank-You Letter)
(Sample Silver Sponsor Thank-You Letter) - Send project evaluation forms to sponsors and teachers. The sponsor’s project evaluation form can be attached to the thank-you letter.
(Sample Teacher Project Evaluation)
(Sample Sponsor Project Evaluation) - Order a banner that will display the total number of miles or steps walked. This can be hung in an appropriate place in the school. The color of the banner can be the same as the T-shirts. (Sample of banner) Determine when and who should present it to the participating class. We have presented it at brief “ceremony” during field day. In 2010, our U.S. Representative, Chris Murphy, presented the banner to the children and congratulated them on their efforts.
- Send press release to local paper(s), using photos if possible.
- Send third and final letter home to parents informing them of final tally of miles/steps walked by the students and sponsors, and highlighting some of the activities during the program (Eating well and Environmental presentations, Closing Assembly, etc).
(Sample 3rd Parent Letter)
Within 2 weeks after the program
- Present banner to students.
- Submit a letter for the “Letters to the Editor” section of the newspaper. It should summarize the purpose, goals and success of the Walking Project and thank the sponsoring businesses and organizations. List all the gold, silver and in-kind sponsors by name.
(Sample Letter to the Editor) - Collect and collate the teacher and sponsor project evaluations.
2-4 weeks after the program
It is important for all the members of the Walking Project committee to meet at this time to discuss how they think the project went, read the teacher and sponsor project evaluations and to review the financials. This will facilitate making the adjustments needed to improve the project for the following year.
- Discuss the finances of the project. Reconcile all expenses and pay any final invoices. If there are funds left, confirm that they can remain in the fiduciary’s account until next year.
- Read and discuss the teacher and sponsor project evaluations. This will give you valuable insight as to the overall success of the project and what you could do differently and /or add to make next year’s project better. If you have funds remaining, discuss what they might be useful for given what is said in the evaluations.
3-6 months after the program
- Develop and conduct a survey of “student graduates” of the Walking Project to see if the program had an impact on their behavior. This might have to be done the following school year if your project took place in the spring, as ours did. Ask the school how this survey might be distributed. (In our school, this was done in September as a 6th grade in-class English writing assignment.)
(Sample Student Project Evaluation)
