Glendaal Elementary School and Scotia-Glenville High School have received grants from the American Dairy Association and Dairy Council's Fuel Up to Play 60 program totaling $4,916 that will be used to boost healthy lifestyle programs at the two schools.
The maximum grant for each school was $4,000. The competitive, nationwide funding program helps schools jumpstart and sustain healthy nutrition and physical activity improvements and programs. What is the Fuel Up to Play 60 program? (PDF)
The schools have to complete a variety of
paperwork before the funding is released. That includes
information about daily lunch and breakfast participation and
total milk sales from the 2010-11 school year, average daily lunch
and breakfast participation figures for your school for the
current 2011-12 school year in June, total milk sales for your
school for the current 2011-12 school year in June and how the
funding was used and "what sort of impact the programs you
implemented had on your students, staff, school, parents, and
community."
Glendaal Elementary School
Glendaal teacher Trish Roeser is one of the members of the school's Fuel Up to Play 60 Committee, which submitted a grant application for the funding in December. The $2,416 that the school was awarded will be disbursed in early February.
She said the group envisions a few activities with the $2,416 that the school was awarded:
▪ A Winter Activity Day. Students will select from a variety of offerings to be active, such as snowshoeing, cross country skiing, yoga, aerobics. There would also be a taste testing of healthy food choices.
▪ An End-of-Year Summer Olympics Theme Day. Stations will be set up that would parallel Olympic sports- soccer ball kicking, basketball shooting, track and field. Each grade would "represent" a different continent, with flags of countries. There may be matching bandanas or T shirts for students. Another taste testing would be held on this day.
▪ Funds would
also be used to make signs for the dining hall
promoting healthy eating, using the Olympics as an underlying
theme for all the activities and signs.
Scotia-Glenville High School
At the High School, the $2,500 Fuel Up to Play 60 grant will be used by the newly-formed SNAC (Student Nutrition & Activity Council) Club, said teacher and SNAC advisor Jaime Muscato.
The SNAC advisors completed the grant application. The money will be used to fund club activities designed to teach students how to make healthier nutritional choices and make fitness a lifestyle - not just while they are in high school but for life.
Some of the activities taking place this year include:
▪ Cooking classes
▪ Fitness classes (such as Zumba(R), yoga, Pilates, Spinning, etc)
▪ Outdoor community events (snow shoeing & cross country skiing)
▪ Lessons on understanding nutrition, dietary needs for fitness events, etc.
Between 18 and 40 students show up for
meetings, depending on the club's activity that day. The club has
been steadily gaining in popularity since it's first meeting in
November. "We are excited by how enthusiastic the high school
students are for a club of this nature," added Muscato.
