School districts receive grants to promote fitness

NEW LEXINGTON, OH - What used to be home economics has transitioned into a nutrition and wellness class for students of Crooksville High School.

The class, required for graduation, is only one of many changes the school and district are implementing to encourage physical fitness and healthy lifestyles for their students and staff.

Soon a one-mile walking trail will line the campus, complete with physical fitness stations along the way. New fitness equipment, including a climbing wall with a dry-erase surface, will be in the gym, candy and pop can no longer be found in the vending machines and even pre-schoolers are learning about nutrition from recently purchased educational material.

"We're pretty excited. We've gotten off to a pretty good start," said Crooksville High School Principal Jacqueline Bolyard.

The Crooksville Exempted Village School District, New Lexington City Schools and the Southern Local School District each received a $50,000 grant from the Osteopathic Heritage Foundation in Nelsonville. It's a grant called the Healthy and Fit in Southeastern Ohio initiative and is a multi-year initiative designed to improve the health, physical activity and nutrition of families.

"The biggest thing is impacting the health of the students. We hear about the obesity epidemic so much in the news and Perry County is number one in the state for the rate of diabetes, so any impact that schools can have on that," said Deborah Raney, cardiovascular grant coordinator at the Perry County Health Department.

With the help of school administrators, teachers and parents she's helped form wellness committees within the schools and has helped guide districts through the grant writing process to earn the foundation grants.

"They (teachers) see those children many more hours than what parents might actually see them. Being a role model, teaching physical health and activity is very important," she said.

The Southern Local School District has also started a wellness committee and already had a fitness trail, but will receive upgrades, like getting paved, with some of the grant money.

A fitness center for staff is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week on school grounds and has about 20 pieces of equipment.

"For our little district, a very poor district, we're doing a lot to try and improve the health and wellness of not only kids, but the community," said Dzidra Brown, district nurse.

The home economics class at Miller High School is now a nutrition and wellness class and nutrition information is being incorporated into the curriculum in the physical education classes.

Vending machines now carry Gatorade or flavored water instead of pop and administrators are exploring options to replace unhealthy snacks in the machines.

"Kids today don't eat healthy enough and we aren't active enough. The schools are able to be a role model and provide healthy cafeteria choices and teachers are being more aware of the need for more physical activity," Raney said.

She said Hocking College has volunteered labor for the school projects, The Shelly Company, based in Thornville, donated $10,000 for material and the Perry County Engineer's Office has hauled stone at cost for the projects.

"It fell into place. It's just been one of those community projects people are involved in and excited about," Raney said.

Zanesville TimesRecorder
LEEANN MOORE August 29, 2008