Blue Jackets, City of Columbus team up for bike safety initiative

On Monday, a particularly sunny spring day in Columbus, groups of students excitedly gathered outside of South Mifflin Elementary for the City of Columbus’ Neighborhood Pride Bicycle Safety Festival, featuring everybody’s favorite bug: Stinger.

Stinger helped distribute and properly fit a free Blue Jackets-branded helmet to all 335 students. In addition, the program included hands-on bicycle safety training and a number of other safety-themed activities.

“Supporting the health and wellness of kids in central Ohio is the mission of the Columbus Blue Jackets Foundation and promoting safe play goes hand-in-hand with that mission,” said Kathryn Dobbs, Blue Jackets VP of Community Relations and Executive Director of the Blue Jackets Foundation.

“More importantly, our grant partners at Nationwide Children’s Hospital do a great job working closely with city programs like Neighborhood Pride to not only distribute bike helmets to the kids who need them, but they provide the hands-on bike safety training as well.”

After learning about the importance of wearing a helmet and receiving a proper fitting, the students were given instruction on the correct hand signals to use while riding as well as what to do when approaching street signage (stop, yield, etc.). Next, the kids were able to put what they learned to test at the interactive Safety Town course.

“The Columbus Blue Jackets Foundation and Nationwide …

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