Middle Schoolers from Peoria’s school district braved the below freezing temperatures and laced on ice skates Thurs.
The Peoria Public School Foundation and PNC Bank sponsored two days of ice skating this week for more than 200 students enrolled in the Horizons Club. The club meets weekly and aims to prepare students for high school, students and beyond.
Foundation President Cindy Morris says this week’s ice skating outing is a reward for good behavior, but it’s also a chance to give some students a new experience.
“I was with some kids from Lincoln School, and many of our students who come to this special incentive, it’s their first time ice skating,” Morris said.
In addition to the ice skating, students received lunch and a pair of blue mittens -- a sensible touch, given the day’s wind chill of negative seven.
“Don’t fall,” Calvin Coolidge seventh grader Evelyn Bowers told her classmate, Mariah Lobdell, who was skating for the first time.
Bowers took a break from her coaching to tell me the Horizons Club has allowed her to explore different careers, through guest speakers.
“It’s really cool, since it encourages people to know that you have a lot of job options, that you can be anything you want to when you grow up,” Bowers said.
Bowers says she wants to be a pediatrician.
This was the second year that PNC Bank, the Peoria Civic Center and the Peoria Public School Foundation hosted Horizons Club students at Winterfest downtown.