Olivia Gross Photo
Zach contemplating the "Challenge" sign.
A new guided walking trail has opened in northern Hamden with an aim to help students — and others in the community — connect with nature and their feelings.
Kira urging people to visit the Grace Trail.
The trail is a winding concrete and dirt path behind West Woods Elementary School, with signs posted at points of reflection. It’s called a “GRACE” trail based on the first letters of the words on the signs: Gratitude, Release, Acceptance, Challenge, Embrace.
Thirty parents and family members were on hand in the West Woods cafeteria Wednesday for a ceremony to formally open the trail, which is available for use by the community outside of school hours.
“I encourage you to walk the trail and feel your emotions,” Kira, a second-grader, told the crowd at Wednesday’s event.
Grace trails exist in six other communities. Two West Woods teachers, Kristen Bell and Ann Marie Blake, came up with the idea of bringing one to the school while on a walk together amid the remote schooling phase of the pandemic.
“We felt a need to connect and heal together,” Bell said.
They knew about Grace trails. So they contacted Anne Jolles about the possibility of creating one at West Woods.
Jolles signed on. Teachers Bell and Blake told Jolles they wanted the trail to “tightly hug” the school so kids could safely make use of it during the day. It was decided to place the signs along an existing concrete path. Jolles donated the money for the signs. (She declined to say how much.) It took a year to gain official permissions from the town and complete the work.
The first sign on the Grace Trail.
Anne Jolles speaking to West Woods students on Wednesday.
Jolles, a life coach, started Grace Trails in 2000 after hearing about a hike in the Appalachian Mountains that veterans sometimes went to “walk off their pain” after her parents died within six months of each other. She decided that she wanted somewhere to walk off her pain, went outside, and made the first Grace Trail in her hometown of Plymouth, Mass. She based the five word-designations on a five-step “resiliency process” in which people can “find our footing … in this crazy world we’re living in … and move in the direction of our choice.” (Click on the above video to watch her describe the project in a Tedx talk.)
Jolles attended Wednesday’s event launching the Hamden trail, the first so far at an elementary school. She distributed a few mini-Grace Trail kits to attendees who wanted to make their own Grace Trails. (You can learn more about the project at this website.)
Jolles shed a tear watching the students speak about what they took away from the Grace Trail. “They overwhelmed me,” she said.
Mayor Lauren Garrett, whose three children have attended West Woods, said at Wednesday’s event that she views the project in the context of helping kids’ mental health. Her son had Blake as a teacher during remote teaching in 2020; Garrett recalled Blake contacting her often to discuss his progress and to check in on the family’s mental health.
A sign on the Grace Trail.
Santosh and Sneha Garimella, parents of a West Woods second grader named Sasha, attended the ceremony and praised the project. The family moved to the U.S. two years ago; Santosh said he has been pleased with the school’s diversity and the way teachers help the kids. Sasha likes school so much that she has refused to go on a vacation if it will make her miss a day of school.
“A place like this -– it’s a destiny. You can’t force it to happen, it just has to happen,” Santosh said.
“Hamden is almost like the America of the future. There are students whose parents are alumni of West Woods and some who just moved here,” said West Woods Principal Dan Levy. He said he looks forward to even more of the community coming together at the school to enjoy the new path.
Ann Marie Blake, Kristen Bell, Anne Jolles, and Dan Levy with second and fifth grade students on the Grace Trail.