City of Belmont Receives Award for WoW Wednesday Program

Mayor Richard Boyce, City of Belmont; Mayor Bob Misenheimer, CCOG Chairman and Councilman Charlie Martin, City of Belmont, receiving the award at the CCOG Board Meeting. Centralina Council of Governments (CCOG) presented their Annual Awards at the Meeting of the CCOG Board of Delegates on February 11, 2010. The awards celebrate the work of member governments and honor the outstanding achievements which work collectively to achieve regional goals.

CCOG member governments were encouraged to nominate innovative projects from their jurisdictions which have contributed to significant and positive advancements in the area.

Excellence in Service to Citizens Award

The City of Belmont has a walkable center city with most of the City’s schools located in this area. However, with the construction of new homes occurring outside the center city the result has been a decrease in the number of students being able to reasonably walk to school.

Realizing this fact, Belmont Central Elementary School Principal, Sara Moore, worked with the City to create the “WoW Wednesday” program. The program provides a means for students who live too far from school to walk, to walk at least a portion of the way to school.

Belmont Central Elementary students walk to school from First Foursquare Gospel Church WoW stands for “Walk or Wheel” and the program is essentially a park and walk initiative. Parents drive their children to a local church, located 1/4 mile from the school. With the assistance of volunteers, the students walk the last 1/4 mile to school.

The program was an instant hit and so popular that students and parents have chosen to participate every day, even though volunteers only assist on Wednesdays.

The program has been successful at its goal of increasing student’s physical activity by enabling them to walk at least a portion of the way to school. It has also helped to improve vehicle traffic congestion around the school and the student drop off is much easier. Principal Moore has also noted that the students who participate in the program are noticeably better prepared to begin their school day since they have “gotten the wiggles out of their system!”

The WoW Wednesday program is a partnership between the City of Belmont, Belmont Central Elementary School, Gaston County Health Department, the Belmont Parish Nurse Ministry, and First Foursquare Gospel Church.