Manpower Month

Every October, when the leaves start to turn and the air is crisp and it's glorious to be outside, Fenn holds a Manpower Month. The goal of Manpower Month is to replace trips normally driven by car with miles that are walked, biked, skated, or paddled. We don’t always have to burn fossil fuels to get where we need to go. For every mile it travels, the average-sized sedan emits about one pound of carbon dioxide, in addition to nitrogen oxides and irritating particulate matter. So, while Fenn boys may not even have their licenses yet, they still do have the power to keep many pounds of auto emissions out of our atmosphere by walking or biking when they can.

We encourage the boys to get their families involved as they do errands, go to the movies, or get escorted to school by bike. Any trip counts, anywhere, any time during the month of October! We also encourage boys to talk with their parents about how to be safe pedestrians and bikers - they should check their equipment prior to every trip, know the rules of the road (and sidewalks!), and think carefully about wearing visible clothing.

FAQs

Do trips taken on the weekends count, too?

Absolutely! You can count trips you travel anywhere by bike or by foot. Skateboard to the ice cream shop on Saturday afternoon, walk to the bus stop on Wednesday morning, bike to a friend’s house on Friday evening….

How do I figure out how many trips to report?

A trip consists of going from one destination to another. So, if you make a round trip (home, to school, and back home again), that's actually two trips. If you walk somewhere and then get picked up by a parent in a car, that would be one trip.

Can I count the miles I ran for exercise or the miles I walked my dog?

While your pup probably thoroughly enjoyed their time outside with you, you can’t count the trip you would normally have walked. Remember, the goal of Manpower Month is to replace the miles you would regularly drive with human-powered forms of transportation, and to see the environmental benefit from those miles saved.

I plan to walk a lot for Halloween, on the last day of Manpower Month. Will that count?

Due to different towns having different guidelines about trick-or-treating during the pandemic, we are not counting Halloween trips this year. It's just more fair this way.