A New Haven school is empowering its students through biking and cycling.
On Tuesday, a brand new bike fleet of 16 bicycles were delivered to East Rock School.
The bicycles will be used for East Rock’s Bike Club - a club where fourth and fifth graders learn how to ride bikes.
East Rock School was the first school to launch its own bike program and the brand new fleet will help the program continue for a second year, according to Principal Sabrina Breland.
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“I just want to let everyone know how exciting it is, how important it is getting students out exercising, getting off the video games, getting them out into the air, so I’m super excited about this,” Breland said.
The bike club is held on Tuesdays and Thursdays with groups of 15 students combined between fourth and fifth graders.
Stephanie Boeher is a language arts teacher at East Rock, and the bike club representative who's been working with the students throughout the year.
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She expressed her gratitude for the grant money that made the new fleet possible, and is looking forward to the program continuing.
"I definitely want to do it next year and it's all because the kids really, they're a great group of kids and they deserve to have these bikes," Boeher said.
The bicycles were bought from Devil’s Gear with $5,000 from the CT Department of Transportation Safe Routes to School Grant.
New Haven’s alder for Ward 9, Caroline Tanbee Smith, was instrumental in obtaining the bike fleet through the grant application.
"For me growing up, learning to ride my bike was a way to gain independence to be able to get to where I wanted to go. It was a way to experience freedom, to explore and navigate my neighborhood and it was simply just really healthy,” Tanbee Smith said.
One East Rock parent, whose daughter is too young to participate in the club, said his daughter is benefitting from the program, despite not being an official member.
“I think it makes her confident, the freedom, because you can walk of course it's very healthy but when you ride a bike you can go a much longer distance,” parent Mauriuz Bartnicki said.
