Running For Betterment, Walking and Riding to School ...

It's International Walk/Bike to School Day and two elementary schools really get into it. 

Skinner Road School will be participating in the International Walk to School Day for the seventh consecutive year. School officials said it  began as a way to support Vernon's new School Wellness Council in 2006 and also to encourage physical activity for students, families and staff. 

While working closely with the Ct. Safe Routes to School Program, school officials have evaluated and improved the walking/biking conditions in the neighborhood and on the school grounds.

About a third of SRS students live within one mile of the school and are considered "walkers."

But today is a school-wide event because buses and day care vans drop off students (with parental permission) about a half-mile from the school. School staff walk to the drop-off points, meet the students, and everyone walks to school together. Families are encouraged to join staffers and strudents.

The same goes for Center Road School. Teachers and volunteers are meeting students in the walking neighborhoods and they will then meet students being dropped off by buses at the intersection of Peterson and Center roads. 

Cyclists will be left up the hill in the sidewalk by Officer Mike Patrizz of the Vernon police department. 

There will even be raffles at CRS. 

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Superintendent of Schools Mary Conway accompanied 50 students from Vernon
Center Middle School and their teacher, Joanne Stavens to Rentschler Field on Tuesday to finish off their final mile in The ING Run for Something Better event. 

The students had been accumulating 25 miles toward a full marathon and 12 toward a half-marathon. 

The 26th and 13th miles were completed at the stadium on Tuesday. 

The event is sponsored by the Hartford Marathon Foundation.