Coastal Healthy Communities Coalition awards Powerful Youth Mini-Grant
Mildred L. Day School’s 265 students will be lacing up their dancing shoes to promote healthy lifestyles. The school will be sponsoring a Healthy Foods for Healthy Bodies Dance-A-Thon on Friday, February 27th. The Dance-A Thon, sponsored by the Civil Rights Team and the Health Committee, is aimed at encouraging youth to be physically active through participation in different dances. The school is using the event to collect 1,000 non-perishable fruit and vegetable food items to be donated to local food banks.
The Dance-A-Thon is being funded through a Powerful Youth Mini-Grant award from Coastal Healthy Communities Coalition (CHCC), a program of the University of New England’s College of Osteopathic Medicine. The mini-grants are focused on initiatives and policy changes that promote and encourage healthy lifestyles through the strengthening of youth-adult partnerships and collaborations.
“This activity helps students form healthy lifestyle habits and shows that being physically active can be fun,” says Pat Tracy, Guidance Counselor at Mildred L. Day School. “The sixteen 4th and 5th graders that comprise the Civil Rights Team, with assistance from teachers Adrianna Pizzo and Jon Woodcock, have been working hard to plan the event.
“Mildred L. Day School has come up with a great project that engages students to be physically active but also supports their community through food donation,” says Megan Rochelo, CHCC Director. “This project is a prime example of youth being empowered to take ownership of their own health while giving back to their community.”
Coastal Healthy Communities Coalition is a community-based health promotion coalition working to promote tobacco prevention/cessation, substance abuse prevention, physical activity and nutrition in both the community and schools. The coalition is a program of the University of New England’s College of Osteopathic Medicine. CHCC is a Healthy Maine Partnership.