Several Wellington schools have made it to the Movin’March honours board this year, with prizes won for art, active travel and in the WOW Passport draw.

Charlie from St Benedict’s School was the winner of the Regional Art Challenge for ages 9-10; St Anthony’s School took out the highest participation rate both for Wellington City and the entire Wellington Region, while Lily from South Wellington Intermediate and Nina from Redwood Schools both won a Movin’March WOW Passport $400 MYRIDE voucher courtesy of My Ride and Greater Wellington.

“It’s great to see schools making big strides in active travel, they are examples of how the enthusiasm of parents, students and the school can pay off in helping school kids to become, and remain, active”, says Travel Choice Coordinator at Greater Wellington Kirsty Barr.

Normally a month-long event run by Greater Wellington Regional Council in partnership with local councils, this year’s Movin’March was cut to three weeks because of COVID-19, but still encouraged large numbers of kids in the region to walk, cycle and scoot to school.

Kirsty Barr says participation and feedback from this year’s Movin’March has been fantastic despite COVID-19.

“This year we had 129 schools in the region participate, which means we have almost 37,000 Year 0-8 students potentially participating in this fantastic free event. We counted nearly 89,000 walk or wheel trips throughout the region over March, which is only slightly fewer than last year, but over a shorter time period so we’re really happy with that result.

“Our goal now is to see how we can support schools in maintaining that enthusiasm throughout the year.”

Kirsty said a great start was that schools have begun to reap the benefits of more engagement with family and whānau, with greater interaction leading to enthusiastic support for Movin’March.

“The more kids we can get involved, the better. The physical and mental benefits of active transport for a generation that will live with climate change are immeasurable.”

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