Beebe Students From Around the World Help Promote Bike Path

Second-grade students stand before a bulletin board with letters they wrote promoting the bike path.
Second-grade students (from left to right) Sunny Li, Satuir Singh, Inmer Palma, Nancy Lau, and Kevin Lin stand by their work at the Beebe School in Malden.

Second-grade students in Patricia Micheli’s class at the Beebe School in Malden helped spread the word about the Northern Strand Community Trail (also known as the Bike to the Sea Trail) as part of a class project.

A letter in English and one in Chinese.
The students wrote the letters in English and had their parents translate them into their native languages.

The students, who’s families emigrated from many different countries, wrote persuasive letters in English promoting the car-free path and then had their parents translate the letters into their native languages. In all, the students distributed 349 letters to family and friends in six different languages: English, Chinese, Pungabi, Portuguese, Spanish, and Arabic.

A second-grade student stands before her work.
Student Yuxuan Zheng distributed the most letters.

When completed, the Northern Strand Trail will be a motor-vehicle-free trail running about 10 miles from Everett, through Malden, Revere, Saugus and Lynn, to Nahant Beach. Portions of the trail in Everett, Malden and Saugus were opened over the past three years and bicyclists, walkers, joggers, roller skaters, dog walkers, cross-country skiers and others have been enjoying it.

A second-grade student stands before his work.
Student Victor Hugo Silva was the boy who distributed the most letters.

Work on the Revere section is under way and is expected to be complete by the end of the summer of 2015.  When that happens, some 7.5 miles of trail will be complete from Everett (not too far from the Best Buy on Route 16) to the Lynn city line. Bike to the Sea officials continue to talk to officials in Lynn who have not yet approved plans for the trail there.

Students stand before their work at the Beebe School.
Students (from left to right) Majed Dasta, Richard Chin, Theresa Jiang, Carmen Deng, and Yuxuan Zeng learned the art of persuasive letter writing by promoting the Northern Strand Trail. The students work was on display for family and friends as part of the school’s “showcase” program this week.