The Annual Earth & Arbor Day Festival resumed in Cupertino after two years with fun for community members of all ages. Walk-Bike Cupertino (WBC) celebrated it with thousands of people at the Cupertino City Center on April 23, 2022. The grand celebration kicked off with a fun-filled family bike ride where WBC fitted helmets for all riders. The celebration then continued on the Cupertino Library Field throughout the day, where WBC had a booth and gave out free helmets, lots of biking information, and enjoyed celebrating with local community members.
The WBC Youth Volunteer Helmet Fitting Team
WBC Helmet Fittings for the Family Bike Ride
This year, several youth and young adult volunteers joined two WBC Advisory Board members Jennifer Shearin and Jian He to support the helmet fitting station and adjust the helmets of bike ride participants . The Cupertino Safe Routes team also arranged multiple activity stations for bike checks, story time, bike decoration, and educational games in the Civic Center Plaza. About 189 bicyclists registered for this year’s family bike ride, a greater participation even than at Earth Day events before the COVID-19 pandemic.
A special thank you to City Staff members Cherie Walkowiak, Birgit Werner, and Victoria Morin!
Cherie Walkowiak and Birgit Werner (from Cupertino Safe Routes to School) organized the family bike ride including setup, decorating, snacks, ride path, and more. Victoria Morin and her team coordinated more than 70 event partners to provide hands-on activities, interactive demos, live entertainments, and yummy food at the festival at Library Field. So many enjoyed your work on April 23!
WBC’s Booth, Raffles & Giveaways
Hundreds of visitors stopped by the WBC booth. We were pleased to be able to give away 60 bike helmets to residents of all ages who needed them. (If you missed getting one, come by our tent at the Fall Bike Festival in September of this year.)
Thank you to Stanford Children’s Health for supporting us by providing the helmets. It’s a wonderful way to keep cyclists of every age safe while riding.
We also raffled off five bike-mounted bubble machines! These are fun accessories for your bike that blow bubbles as you ride. Our five lucky winners were notified via the email addresses on the sign up sheet.
Two happy recipients of new helmets–fit by WBC, too!
From left to right: Cupertino Bike-Ped Commissioner Erik Lindskog, WBC Chair Seema Lindskog, and Cupertino City Councilmember Jon Willey.
Councilmember Kitty Moore came by and we discussed ongoing walk bike projects in Cupertino and how these would benefit our community.
Cupertino City Council candidate JR Fruen visited our booth and shared his support of biking and walking in our city.
WBC Boardmembers Revathy Narasimhan (bottom left), Jian He (bottom right), Jennifer Shearin (top right) and WBC member Emma Shearin (top left) gave ot helmets, walking and biking information and snacks through lunchtime.
We hope you were able to join us for this great celebration day. If not, we’d enjoy seeing you at the next Cupertino celebration this fall: The Cupertino Fall Bike Fest.
Join us at the Fall Bike Fest in late September!
We’ll have another fun family ride–as always, a flat, slower ride so that everyone can keep up–and much, much more. Watch our website for the announcement or sign up to receive our newsletter here so you don’t miss it.