Baldoyle a wash with Green Flags

Press Release -
St Mary’s Secondary School, Baldoyle has done it again!
St Mary’s The Green Machine Winners

Having won the 2006 Fingal Environmental Group of The Year Award and the very prestigious 2008 Green Award for the Greenest School in Ireland at the national Green Awards in the Burlington Hotel in December and then being short listed for the 2008 Living Dublin Environmental Award, the school was awarded their fourth green flag for sustainable travel on the 4th March 2009 at the An Taisce Green Flag Ceremony in Croke Park.

This green school was commended by also receiving a certificate for their outstanding achievement in improving the environmental quality of the school and community over the past two years. This was achieved by the hard work of the green school committee under the supervision of Pauline Griffin, Green School Co-ordinator, who organised the implementation of travel schemes which encouraged students to cycle or walk to school instead of travelling by car. Over 50% of the students now walk to school on Wednesdays and the number of days students who cycled to school every month increased from zero to thirty one days from October to February this year.

There were many varied initiatives including

WOW – Walk on Wednesdays

Car Pooling

Park and Stride

COW – Cycle on Wednesdays

Walking Bus

The Golden Boot Award

Travel Action Days

Golden Helmet Award

Bicycle Shed Built

COW Poster Competition

Raffle for a Bicycle

St Mary’s has been involved in the Green School Programme for the past ten years and were the first secondary school in Fingal to receive a green flag for waste management in 2002. Since then, St. Mary’s has been awarded two further Green Flags in the areas of Energy Conservation and Water Conservation. This fourth Green Flag for Sustainable Travel makes the school unique in its number of Green Flags.

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I hope to get some photos of the flag raising on Friday.