This week, BWCF partnered with Helmets Save Lives and Orlando city officials to promote bike helmet safety for the back to school season. Keep reading for some highlights from the events:
Englewood Neighborhood Center
Crack! Another egg (with a face drawn on it) smashed as it hit the ground.
“That’s a trip to the emergency room,” The Purple Bike Lady said as she picked up the plastic bag, now filled with egg yolk and pieces of broken shell.
Purple Bike Lady and Bike/Walk Central Florida partner Lyndy Moore and Orlando Commissioners Tony Ortiz and Jim Gray joined Helmets Save Lives and BWCF at the Englewood Neighborhood Center for a day of bike safety education Friday, July 19. The event was held for students aged 6 though 14 involved in the center’s summer camp. It was designed to prepare them to head back to school and learn about bike safety as they get ready to ride to class in the fall.
Lyndy demonstrated her famous egg drop at the event to show the importance of wearing a helmet – and the consequences if you don’t.
The presentation goes like this: she drops one egg into a pile of Styrofoam packing peanuts, simulating the padding of a bike helmet around your head. That egg never breaks. Then, she drops one directly onto the ground, as if you weren’t wearing a helmet – we all know what happens from there.
Helmets Save Lives volunteers Josh Barzey and Rossemary Frick also contributed to the helmet safety demonstration, giving safety tips and laying down the rules of the road—including crosswalk safety, and looking left-right-left. They reminded the kids of the importance of wearing a helmet, and to always “Put it on before you take off!”
After the helmet safety presentation, the elementary and middle schoolers enjoyed community vendor tables, collecting backpacks, bike safety brochures, school supplies – and fittings for new bike helmets. Six lucky students even won brand new bikes in a raffle, donated by the Orlando Police Department.
Dover Shores Community Center
The following Tuesday, July 23, kids in the Dover Shores community also learned a thing or two about bike and pedestrian safety.
At this event, BWCF joined Helmets Save Lives, Orlando Commissioner Jim Gray and Orlando Commissioner Tony Ortiz’s office. Kids from the Dover Shores Community Center’s summer program watched a similar helmet safety demonstration, this time led by Orlando Health volunteer Jaime Fletcher.
After learning about the importance of bike helmets – and watching a few more smiley-faced eggs meet an early demise — the Dover Shores kids set off to pick up school supplies, get fitted for brand new, free helmets, play some games and eat burgers cooked up by the Orlando Police Department.
Let’s Recap
BWCF and partners fit 163 kids in Englewood and 145 in Dover Shores for free helmets during the event. Now, we know more than 300 students in the Englewood and Dover Shores communities will be safe and prepared for the upcoming school year! Thank you to all who are involved in the push for bike/ped safety – together we’re keeping kids in Orlando safe on the roads!
To get additional resources about helmet safety, visit our RESOURCES page.
The success of both events wouldn’t have been possible without the strong support of community partners: City of Orlando, Orlando Utilities Commission, PedBike Resource Center, Women’s Care Florida, Simply Healthcare, Department of Health – Orange County, the Orlando Police Department, Meridien Research Center and of course, Helmets Save Lives.
