If you tried driving up Osgood Road in Sanbornton last Friday morning, you would have encountered quite a sight: inspired by two Sant Bani seniors, all 200+ students, faculty and staff “walked to school” to kick off the School’s day-long Earth Day celebration.

It started last winter when Seniors Adison Lintner and Max Duncanson decided to walk to school from their homes in Franklin rather than drive their cars, in order to minimize their impact on the Earth. They had to leave in the dark early morning hours in order to make it to school by 8 a.m. Along the route teachers and classmates offered rides, but they declined, determined to make the trip on foot.

As Earth Day approached this year, Sant Bani staff decided their idea could be carried over to the entire school community. At 8 a.m. on Friday, April 20, students and staff gathered at the School’s Lower Field on Osgood Road to begin their walk and decrease their impact on the Earth. The crowd of over 200 walked and rode their bikes, visiting with friends as the wound their way up the long dirt road. At the end they gathered on the School’s athletic field to enjoy a moment of celebration together before breaking into groups for Earth Day related activities.

Multi-aged groups of students and staff spent the rest of the day watching and discussing the National Geographic documentary “The Human Footprint,” repairing stone walls, clearing cross-country trails, gardening and landscaping, planting flowers in the traffic island on Route 127 and fanning out across town for the School’s annual roadside cleanup effort.

An idea that started with two concerned high school students in the cold of winter culminated on a warm spring morning with a school full of students reducing their carbon footprint on the earth by making lots of real footprints in the dirt on their walk to school.