About 60 students at Hardin Park Elementary walked or rode their bicycles to school on Thursday as part of International Walk+Bike to School Day.

Joined by parents and other adult volunteers, student cyclists met at Earth Fare and at the Regal Cinema parking lot just after 7 a.m. so they could ride together in large groups to the school, located on Jefferson Road (N.C. 194) in Boone. The students convened again at 2:30 p.m. to ride home.

“I think today was a good day to show people that you can bike to school,” said Kaitlyn Jongkind, a health promotions employee for the Appalachian District Health Department.

The event at Hardin Park was also held to celebrate the installation of a new bicycle rack at the school — the result of a student-led initiative. Hardin Park Elementary seventh-graders Kelsey Marlett, Katie Mac Knight and Levi Marland, who have biked to school for two years, collaborated on a grant application to fund a new bike rack at the school.

The project successfully received a grant of approximately $1,800 from the health department’s Take Step Two initiative, funded by a Communities Putting Prevention to Work grant from the Centers for Disease Control.

“Take Step Two is focused on making our communities healthier places to live,” said Stephanie Craven, healthy youth policy coordinator, in a statement. “This bike rack will encourage Hardin Park Elementary students to bike to school and engage in daily physical activity.”

In addition to requesting funding for a bike rack, Marlett, Knight and Marland conducted a survey at Hardin Park last school year and found that while 73 percent of parents think that riding to school is healthy, 75 percent of parents do not allow their children to walk or bike to school because of traffic safety concerns.

The students appeared before the Boone Town Council in April to make a presentation on bicycling safety and infrastructure needs on New Market Blvd. near the school. The students requested that the town install stop signs and crosswalks at New Market Blvd. at the intersection between Boone United Methodist Church and the High Country Council of Governments building.

“It would be nice if there was a sidewalk going up in front of the Methodist Church,” Marland added at the time. Since then, the Boone Public Works Department installed a sidewalk from the church to the school crossing on New Market Blvd.

“I was very impressed with these students who wanted to encourage their classmates to get more exercise and also be environmentally friendly,” said Hardin Park Principal Mary Smalling. “The students then took it another step by seeing the need we had in the form of bike racks and met with me to discuss how to make it possible for us to add additional bike racks to the school. They have learned a lot along the way, and we love the new bike rack.”

More than 80 percent of Hardin Park students live within a two-mile radius, according to a press release from the health department.

“The school could save on busing costs while increasing their students’ health and level of physical activity,” the release stated.

Smalling acknowledged that safety remains a big concern in allowing students to bike to school. Developing safe routes and organizing group rides will help with that, she said.

“Any time you have a big group of bikes, obviously they’re getting noticed more,” Smalling said. “We’re also working to try to get a sidewalk that rides along the side of the school. It is by no means a perfectly safe bike town, but I think it is something that the town is working toward.”

The town of Boone recently received funding via the N.C. Department of Transportation to create a bicycle plan for the town.

For more information about Take Step Two, visit http://www.takesteptwo.com or contact Craven at (828) 264-4995.

Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly spelled the name of Hardin Park seventh-grader Katie Mac Knight.