| 1997 |
Traffic congestion in the U.K spurs TravelWise to start Walk to School Week.
WSD is launched in Chicago under the leadership of the Partnership for a Walkable America. |
| 1998 |
Project taken on by Canada, where 16,000 students from 100 schools across 5 provinces take part.
In Ontario alone, 14,500 students walked to school. |
| 1999 |
New Zealand join the project. In Canada 100 000 students from 500 schools participated.
Numbers in Ontario tripled; 250 schools and 50,000 students took part. |
| 2000 |
Eight countries join forces for the first ever International Walk to School Week (IWALK).
An estimated 2.5 million students worldwide walk for safer streets, healthier bodies and a cleaner environment.
400 Ontario schools participated and across Canada close to 900 schools were registered. |
| 2001 |
IWALK participation worldwide grew to 20 countries.
In Canada 1,080 schools participated, 440 of them in Ontario. |
| 2002 |
609 Ontario schools participated. Across Canada there were 1,430 schools joining 28 countries.
Worldwide it was estimated that 5,000,000 students walked! |
| 2003 |
This year IWALK celebrated a full week of activities, as well as IWALK Day on Oct. 8.
30 countries participated, and in Canada about 2000 schools took part with over 850 in Ontario |
| 2004 |
IWALK continues to gain momentum and expand its reach: 36 countries officially register on
the international web site and here in Ontario over 1,000 schools participated. |
| 2005 |
Worldwide 37 countries participated. In Ontario over 1,100 schools
got involved in a variety of exciting activities. |
| 2006 |
Over 40 countries participated with well over 2,000 schools in Ontario.
This year saw many more rural schools registering for the event and linking the IWALK themes to daily physical education. |
| 2007 |
On IWALK Day schools across Ontario and other parts of Canada participated in the World Record Walk and thanks to
them Canada has a new world record for the most people walking one kilometer
at the same time - visit www.worldrecordwalk.ca for full details. |
| 2008 |
The momentum continues to grow and in Canada we launched the Canadian Active & Safe Routes to School partnership –
a cross Canada collaboration of provincial programs – see www.saferoutestoschool.ca/partnership/ for details. |
