Findlay, Ohio, Nov. 15, 2004 – Students from The University of Findlay have joined with the Jacobs/Washington Community Task Force in a program that helps Washington Intermediate School children walk home safely.

In the Walking School Bus program, which began Nov. 8, area volunteers escort the school’s third- through fifth-graders home from school on a specified route. The need for such a program was established after busing from the school was discontinued.

Each volunteer contributes one-and-a-half hours per week to walk a specific route with the children, after school dismissal. On every afternoon of the school week, two adult volunteers report to the school office by 3:15. These volunteers are given safety equipment, first-aid supplies, a two-way radio and a packet including names of children on the route and a map of the route.

The volunteers walk along the specified route with the children and return to the school to turn in the supplies for the next day’s volunteers. The pilot Walking School Bus is one route at Washington School, and nine children are currently participating in the program, according to Washington School Principal Steve Seagrave.

The Task Force hopes to expand this program by offering more routes at Washington School and by starting new routes at Jacobs Primary School.

“The Walking School Bus is a perfect example of community members identifying a need and finding a feasible solution to that need,” Crystal Jones, AmeriCorps VISTA Service Leader with the Campus Compact Center at UF, said. “The Walking School Bus grants various community members the opportunity to make a real difference in children's lives, by ‘simply’ taking a walk with them.”

Jones, who helped organize the program, is also a walker for the bus.

Volunteers are being recruited from local churches, support groups, non-profit agencies, and UF. Volunteer training includes fingerprinting and BCI Background screening, safety procedures and basic first-aid training.

People interested in volunteering for the Walking School Bus, and who have the 3:15-4:30 p.m. time slot open once a week, should contact Crystal Jones, AmeriCorps VISTA Service Leader at the Campus Compact Center for Service and Learning, at 419-434-6671 or cjones@findlay.edu.