I am posting this entry from the Gila River Indian Community in Chandler, Arizona. This is where the W.K. Kellogg Foundation is having their annual networking conference. I am attending as a participant in Detroit Food and Fitness Initiative which is funded by the Foundation over the next three years. Part of that funding now covers my job as Detroit Greenways Coordinator for the Michigan Trails and Greenways Alliance.

Of course, Kellogg doesn’t just want to fund people and efforts.  They want to see positive changes that meet their mission of improving access to healthy foods and providing safe environments for active living — especially for children.

The Detroit-specific Food and Fitness objectives fall into three categories: food systems, schools, and the built environment. The built environment objectives include advocating for Complete Streets and making Detroit a more walkable and bikeable environment — including Safe Routes to School.

Perhaps what’s most exciting about this is how the Food and Fitness Initiative is the diversity and experience of the  collaboration working on these issues.

As for the conference, I’ve come away with a couple big takeaways.

First, we need to do a better job engaging youth in our advocacy efforts. Going before city councils to ask for betting biking facilities often fall on deaf ears. Having a room full of young adults asking for the same is far more powerful. We really need to engage Metro Detroit youth in these non-motorized issues.

Second, we should look at doing a baseline assessment of biking and walking in the city of Detroit. We don’t have data on how many people  chose these options for transportation. The American Community Survey data from the Census Bureau is in nearly  all case imprecise and of basically no value. (Despite that, groups like the Alliance for Biking and Walking use it to rank cities — not smart.) We need to know where we’re at now so we can celebrate our inevitable increases in the future (and justify greater public and private investment.)

— Todd Scott

We recently wrote about W.K. Kellogg’s early bicycling advocacy efforts including his lifetime membership in the League of American Wheelmen.

Those efforts have continued through the Kellogg Foundation which has invested in trails throughout Michigan.

Here’s more good news as of last Monday.

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W.K. Kellogg of Battle Creek, Michigan is famous for breakfast cereal. Everyone knows that.

What’s less known is his connection to cycling.

W.K. Kellogg was a member of the League of American Wheelmen (L.A.W.). Although not knowing when he joined, his membership number is very low (1,092) making him one of the first Michigan cyclists to sign up.

In 1897, Battle Creek had the third most L.A.W. memberships behind Detroit and Grand Rapids (but just one more than Escanaba!)

When the L.A.W. began life memberships in 1901, W.K. Kellogg paid the $10 fee. He was just the seventh Michigan cyclist to do so. (Nationwide, Detroiters Horatio “Good Roads” Earle bought the first life membership while Edward Hines had the sixth.)

With his brother, W.K. Kellogg started the Sanitas Nut Food Company in the late 1890s. Both were vegetarians who experimented with nut butter as a protein substitute. They even received a patent for this early predecessor of modern peanut butter.

Their company advertisement on the right was printed in a 1901 League of American Wheelmen Bulletin. This was an early example of a healthy, sports-oriented protein product.

But in 1906, W.K. Kellogg parted ways with his brother and the nut business to concentrate on breakfast cereals.

From the Kellogg Foundation web site:

W.K. went on to become one of the world’s wealthiest men. But with his puritanical conscience, he felt guilty living the lavish life of a millionaire. Instead, W.K. felt obligated to use his fortune for the benefit of humankind: “If I am successful in getting out of debt, and become prosperous,” he wrote in 1909, “I expect to make good use of any wealth that may come to me.”

In 1930, W.K. Kellogg made good on that promise when he established the Kellogg Foundation. During his lifetime, he donated most of his fortune ($66 million) to create the Foundation’s endowment.

But that’s not the end of the Kellogg/bicycling connection. The Kellogg Foundation continues to support bicycle-related efforts throughout the U.S.

For example, they granted $1 million to help develop greenways in Southeast Michigan. They’ve also committed $2 million to building a non-motorized trail from Kalamazoo to Battle Creek.