After winning first place in a national grant program, the Town of Chapel Hill is set to jump-start a youth bicycle education program.
The local government’s project, titled “Wheels of Wellness,” earned first place in the Small Town category of the 2025 Childhood Obesity Prevention & Environmental Health & Sustainability Awards — meaning Chapel Hill took home a $125,000 grant for the program. The win was announced during the 93rd Winter Meeting U.S. Conference of Mayors earlier in January, and the town announced the win with a video this week.
In an interview with 97.9 The Hill, Mayor Jess Anderson described Wheels of Wellness as an initiative to spark passion and interest in bicycling by providing children with the right equipment and safety tips.
“As our mobility team describes it, Wheels of Wellness is similar to our circulator bookmobile where they drive around with books,” she said, “but instead of books, we’re arriving with bikes and helmets and safety cones. And it’s a whole block party where kids learn about bike safety and improve their bike skills within their own neighborhood — and then take a group ride together so the kids have confidence using the greenways in the areas right around their houses.”
The Wheels of Wellness block parties will be in coordination with the town’s affordable housing, community connections, parks and recreation divisions. In Chapel Hill’s video promoting the project, an example of one of the workshops was shown at the Hargraves Community Center.
Not only will the initiative try to instill active lifestyles and long-term healthy habits for the kids, but Wheels of Wellness fits within Chapel Hill’s broader push to encourage bicycling as it expands its mobility and sustainability goals. As part of its strategic goals, the town is working on an Everywhere to Everywhere greenway network and has emphasized connectivity to such trails and paths in newer development projects. As Anderson described, the bike education program may help encourage people to recognize bicycles as a quick, easy option for navigating the community.
“That’s the hope: once [these children] really learn how to be on bikes and how to be comfortable and safety on bikes, that becomes an automatic option [for getting around],” said the Chapel Hill mayor. “As we’re investing [in] that bike infrastructure over time, [we hope] that it becomes more appealing and easier — and then as we all become more proficient with biking, it becomes an automatic thing that you just jump on your bike and you pop over somewhere, instead of getting in your car, going a circuitous route, hitting traffic and parking.”
The Childhood Obesity Prevention & Environmental Health & Sustainability Awards program is an effort of the American Beverage Foundation for a Healthy America, which is the advocacy arm of the trade association for the county’s non-alcoholic beverage industry.
“Mayors know their cities best. That’s why America’s beverage companies are proud to partner with the U.S. Conference of Mayors to help drive community-based solutions that directly address today’s most pressing challenges,” said Kevin Keane, president and CEO of American Beverage and president of the ABFHA board of directors, in a press release. “We congratulate the winning mayors and their cities for their outstanding efforts to improve the communities we call home. We look forward to building on our shared commitment to advancing health and sustainability nationwide.”
To see the full list of grant winners from the awards program, visit the American Beverage Foundation for a Healthy America website.
Featured photo via the Town of Chapel Hill.
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