Merary Rosado knows the importance of teaching her son Gene how to walk safely to his school, Spring Lake Elementary School.

  • Sidewalk used to be littered with broken bottles, weeds
  • Now sidewalk offers sense of pride to others

"I always tell him we have to look back and forth while crossing the street," Rosado said. "He's always holding my hand, I never let him go. Because he's little. He's only 4."

In the past, the way to school has been treacherous enough for the duo to have to alter their path, potentially putting them in harm's way.

Large branches, broken beer bottles and cans once littered the path to school.

"We have to like maneuver sometimes,” said Rosado. “The sidewalk gets blocked because there is so many (things) we have to walk on the road. And that's dangerous as is, because you're not supposed to be walking on the road."

But that once treacherous path is now celebrated, culminating in Spring Lake Elementary's participation in International Walk to School Day.

It's an event in which schools all across Central Florida took part.

First-year Principal Patty Harrelson thinks that kind of awareness is important.

"I think there needs to be an emphasis on safety,” said Harrelson. “Especially at a school where most of your kids are pedestrians, are walkers, are bike riders."

Take the newly-repaired fence and walkway area called "Pig's Alley." It looks nice now, but that is a recent change.

"Before there were a lot of references to drugs on there, a lot of pornography and it was just overrun with weeds and broken fencing,” said Harrelson. "It just wasn't a great environment for your kids to walk through every morning on their way to school."

Because that particular section is not owned and maintained by the city of Ocoee or Orange County, the area was overrun as time when by.

This past summer, volunteers from local churches, the Ocoee Police Department and local businesses began transforming the area from eyesore to a safe, friendly walkway.

"Right when I got here, the progress started with the makeover and so I got be a part of all the cleanup work,” Harrelson said. “And to kind of watch it happening on Saturdays was just so exciting."

However, not everybody was thrilled about the new walkway. Workers did experience some resistance.

"There is one church that came out and, some people marked it after they had repainted it and they came out and fixed it,” said Harrelson. "And every night they were checking to make sure that nothing new had been posted on it. They painted over it if they did. And it's been quite some time since that happened so I think people are proud of the wall."