This is it!

Can you feel the momentum building for getting kids active in schools?   Can you feel the walking movement growing?  Can you hear the call to action to ensure our communities are designed to help people move?

We are ready to seize the moment.  Are you ready to join us? 

The Safe Routes Partnership will be doing a lot in the coming months to inform our partners, grow the movement and capitalize on the momentum.  We must: if we continue on the current trends of physical inactivity, this generation of children is expected to be the first to have a shorter lifespan than their parents.  Here’s how you can help:

Let your volunteers and Safe Routes to School partners and schools know about the new Let’s Move Active Schools initiative, announced by the First Lady Michelle Obama yesterday. What a wonderful thing for the Safe Routes to School movement to be a key partner – this focus is going to inspire and change the norms in 50,000 schools to get kids engaged with 60 minutes of physical activity a day. 

Partners from Safe Routes Partnership, Kaiser Permanente, and National PTA gathered in Chicago at the Let's Move! third anniversary celebration as First Lady Michelle Obama called for school champions to help all students get active and bring physical activity back to schools.

Fire Up Your Feet is proud to be listed as a resource on Let’s Move Active Schools for community and family engagement and we are thrilled to join our many partners involved with this initiative.  If you haven’t already, check out the Fire Up Your Feet program, read up on the new healthy fundraising option, and join a What Is Fire Up Your Feet webinar in March.

Follow all the activities from next week’s National Bike Summit. Then re-tweet and repost the calls to action in your local area. Read updates from our deputy director or join our webinar next week on How to Be a Policy Advocate. Then pledge to meet with a city official or school board member in your area, or train advocates to make a difference. I am also co-chairing the Every Body Collaborative with Tyler Norris, vice president Total Health at Kaiser Permanente, and next week we are bringing together partners to discuss the walking movement and a future Surgeon General call to action around walking.

Learn all about the DESIGNED TO MOVE campaign and report. More than 70 expert organizations from the field of physical activity were involved in developing this report. The resulting one vision and two asks to early, positive physical activity experience for children and to integrate physical activity for children into everyday life with built environments that are designed to get our children moving again.  Nike and other leading global organizations are committing major focus and resources to bring a new awareness to these urgent, critical issues. We look forward to our continued dialogue and work with the Designed to Move champions. 

Never before has such focus, commitment and resources been harnessed to improve the health and well-being of our children and to foster the creation of livable, sustainable communities. There has never been a better time for the Safe Routes to School movement – seize it today!