Parking Day and World Car Free Day

On Friday 16th September St Augustine's celebrated International Parking Day. We also combined World Car Free Day (officially falling on the 22nd) celebrations and invited the community to leave their cars at home.

In planning the event, the student team decided to do the following:

• Healthy breakfast
• Encourage community to leave the car at home
• Walk Around Australia activity to measure the whole school's active travel kms for the day
• Decorate parking bays to re-imagine the space as playspace and a classroom

This is the second time St Augustine's have run a Parking Day event so the planning should have been a little bit easier this year, but this was our first event without the support of Crawford, the Travelsmart Officer at the City of Belmont. Usually Crawford would deliver a box of fruit and yoghurt to the school to offer students a healthy breakfast on arrival for active travel event days. It was tricky to find a new contact at the City of Belmont as there has not been a direct replacement for Crawford hired yet. With persistence from the your move team and help from multiple departments, the CoB agreed to fund a healthy breakfast for the students. Our school gardener, Mrs McCafferty, kindly volunteered to pick up the fruit and yoghurt from the grocery store.

Without Crawford's help, I also had to forge a new path to obtain permission from the CoB to use the parking spaces. (We miss you Crawford!!) With a little bit of research and a few conversations with reception, the Ranger Services team were able to provide the relevant permission to turn 4 prominent parking bays at the front of the school into a playspace / classroom for the day.

Before the event, the Yr 6 your move team created promotional posters and went from classroom to classroom to explain the plan to the whole school. I also posted these on the facebook P & F page to advise parents of the event.

On the morning of the event the student team got in early to set up the space. We had heaps of volunteers wanted to lend a hand.

The space looked amazing when they were done!

Soon enough the rest of the school started to turn up. The Yr6 your move team met each active traveller at the gate to celebrate their trip and give them each a sticker.

The fresh fruit and yoghurt funded by the CoB was a big hit and we were able to provide it in the new space.

Parents enjoyed their morning coffee on the benches.

During the day, teachers brought their classes out to enjoy the new space and learn about the message of sustainability.

Mixing International Parking Day and World Car Free Day was a fantastic opportunity to learn about the impact that cars have on our environment, not only from the point of view of emissions and pollution, but also the space that their use demands! Learning about this helps to bring back the message to our students that active travel is an important life skill and habit that not only benefits each individual, but benefits the community and the world!

We celebrated the success of the event to the whole community via our official school facebook and instagram pages.