Hundreds of D.C. second graders rolled into Kenilworth Park on a gorgeous Friday for “Graduation on Wheels,” and many of them would leave school with a stylish new ride.
Learning to ride a bike is part of the D.C. Public Schools curriculum for second graders. Over a handful of physical education classes this year, they learned how to balance, pedal, stop and all the other aspects of safe biking.
Friday’s event was an opportunity for them to show off what they learned, though for 300 kids in Ward 7 and Ward 8, it came with a bonus — free bikes.
“They’re brand-new bicycles with their name on it, with their helmets, with locks,” said Fred Schaufeld, founder of the D.C. Bike Ride. “It’s one of the most fun events that I’ve ever been to.”
Students decorated their rides with stickers before heading home. Second grader Elaiya Hamilton was one of them.
“The stickers look very nice, and I like that I have a dinosaur sticker because I love dinosaurs,” she said.
Hamilton said she’s planning to ride to the park and back home this summer, and she’s already thinking about paying it forward.
“When you learn how to ride a bike, you could show your other friends how to ride a bike too,” she said.
Other kids were just as excited about that idea.
“We are riding some bikes!” Zoren Geffard said. “You can do tricks on it, and you can ride it around wherever you want,” adding she was already scheming about where this new bike would take her.
“It’s super fun,” she said excitedly. “I would go to some Target, some Five Below to get some more NeeDohs. I would get some Dumplings squishies, and then I would go to the mall and spend my mommy and my daddy’s credit card.”
It’s the kind of excitement any adult can remember feeling themselves as a kid.
“There’s nothing like breaking off into the wind, riding away, enjoying riding a bike, but also being active,” schools Chancellor Lewis Ferebee said. “We hear a lot about students not being as active as they used to be in years past, and so this is one way we can ensure that students are active, they’re out and enjoying the great park space and amenities we have here in our city.”
School leaders stressed that knowing how to ride a bike was an important life skill to have, especially in a city like D.C.
“These kids have got to understand the joy, the independence, the fun, the freedom that comes from riding a bike,” Deputy Mayor for Education Paul Kihn said. “It’s liberation. You are riding along, going as fast as you can, as safely as you can, and you just feel let loose from the world.”
For some kids, getting to keep the bike seemed mind-blowing, Schaufeld said.
“You remember it for the rest of your life,” he said. “In some cases, they just can’t even wrap their heads around the fact that at the end of the day those bikes are going back to their schools and back to their houses for them for the summer, forever.”
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