Community Day School students take a ride on Walk/Bike to School Day
Thousands of Burbank students walked and biked to school Wednesday morning and the children at Community Day School were not going to miss out on the event.
With help from two local bicycle-enthusiast groups — Burbank Bike Angels and WalkBike Burbank — the campus’ 25 middle and high school students were able to pedal down the Chandler Bikeway for a 10-mile morning bike ride.
“We just thought it would be neat to be involved in that because it’s a great program to get kids involved,” said Christine Krohn, principal of Community Day School.
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Krohn considered having her students participate in Walk/Bike to School Day about a month ago. However, when she asked her students if they had bicycles, the majority of them said that they did not.
Upon finding that out, Krohn said she reached out to the Bike Angels, who donate bicycles to children in Burbank during the holidays, to see if they could help her with her bicycle-shortage issue.
“They called and told me that they had bikes, but no mechanics to fix the bikes,” she said.
Fortunately, that wasn’t a problem for Krohn. One of her teachers, Ernie Estrada, commutes to Burbank from Monrovia about twice a week and is an avid bicyclist with some knowledge of bike repairs.
As word started to spread about their efforts, a member from the WalkBike Burbank volunteered to help Estrada, and some students also stepped up to help repair the bikes in time for the event.
“The bikes that Bike Angels get are donated, so many of them are broken and not usable,” said Mary Dickson, a member of WalkBike Burbank whose husband helped Estrada fix the bikes. “So we did an assessment of what needed to be done.”
One of Estrada’s students, 16-year-old Israel Puente, volunteered on multiple Saturdays to help fix bicycles for his classmates.
“I had a bike with a popped tire, and I wanted to use it to come to school, so I asked my teacher how he could help me fix bikes,” Israel said. “So, he taught me how to take off the tubes, how to put the tires back and how to fix the brakes. So when he told me about [Bike Angels], I started volunteering there. I just started loving fixing bikes.”
Israel added that he plans to continue volunteering with the Bike Angels to repair bicycles for the community.
Estrada said that the biking event ended up being more about the students participating in a nationwide event.
“We want to empower them so they can start riding their bikes around town and living an active lifestyle,” he said.
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Anthony Clark Carpio, anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com
Twitter: @acocarpio
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