Nine13sports kicked off the month of November on Monday by bringing Kids Riding Bikes℠ programming to Paul I. Miller School 114 for the first time as part of a grant from the Central Indiana Community Foundation. We were able to get 126 youth on our bikes, which included 44 kindergarten and 1st grade students! This was the first time in the history of Nine13 that these grade levels have ridden our bikes and it was certainly a memorable and fulfilling experience. Although at first we were worried about the children having trouble reaching the pedals, this turned out to not be an issue at all. Additionally, after the kindergarten and 1st grade students finished riding they, asked with genuine anticipation as the next time they would get the chance to ride our bikes. The smiles and laughter we witnessed during this have resonated with us and made the question to bring our programming to additional kindergarten and 1st grades rather simple.
These were just a few of the smiles that we saw and we can’t wait to see more in the coming weeks!
The kindergarten and 1st grade students, collectively, rode a total of 17.6 miles on our bikes. The 2nd – 6th grade students rode a total of 53.3 miles. Altogether, these students enthusiastically and intensively pedaled a grand total of 70.9 miles. In case you were wondering just how far that is, it’s 68.3 miles to travel from Indianapolis to Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana. That’s pretty impressive and we couldn’t be more proud of these students!
The bigger news within all these fun stats is that, effective for 2016, we’ll be expanding programs to include kindergarten and first grade on a regular basis. The aim will be to not only get students on our bicycles, but to discuss bicycle safety and helmet use, appropriate and safe places to ride, and help reinforce the message of the bicycle being a lifelong tool.
We’ll be beta testing our programs with select classes over the next two months with the official roll out coming upon the return to school in January. We’re modifying and obtaining some additional equipment that will allow us to best serve the tiny bicyclists that will be joining us in our classes!