Healthy Kids Initiative

Visit the Market this Sunday to find carrots, garlic scapes, salad bowl planters, tamales, 9 kinds of salsa, a new chocolate flavor called “Hot Hearts,” and much, much more!

Happy new year, Rosedale!  What are your goals for the coming year?

New newsletter,

New gardens,

New girls running program,

New community walking club,

New season at the farmers market…

I can’t believe it’s April!

We talk a lot about what it means to be healthy over here at HKI.  What it means to eat right, and exercise regularly and prevent chronic diseases caused by obesity.  But I think Martin Luther King Day is a good day to remember that there are many reasons that people in Rosedale (and many other urban communities) can’t easily feed their families healthy food or exercise safely outside.   And that is a good reminder of why we work on advocacy issues – we want to create a community where the healthy choice is the easy choice for everyone in the Rosedale community, regardless of race, economic status, education or age.

I’ll close with a few quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

“Almost always, the creative dedicated minority has made the world better.”

Happy Martin Luther King Day, Rosedale.  May we continue to work to make the community of Rosedale (and the world) better and healthier.

We’re so excited to have Beth Low, director of the Kansas City Food Policy Coalition, joining us at our Garden Team meeting next Tuesday night to talk about her work and the Eat Local for the Holidays campaign.  Check out the new flier Joshua made us for it!

Jane is especially excited about the “healthy holiday recipe exchange” at the end  – we encourage you to bring your favorite healthy recipe to share!  We’ll be cooking some of ours to have examples.

Learn the Healthy Kids Club song!

Today our Community Health Project Interns present at the KUMC showcase, officially ending their internships.  I can’t believe that the summer is nearing a close!  We’re grateful for all the hard work our interns and summer staff did this summer, and we will miss their energy and perspective.

You can read more about their summer projects in the new HKI Newsletter – Summer 2010.  I will post photos of each of the interns with their projects soon, so stay tuned!

It’s Day 2 of Healthy Kids Camp, and despite the craziness, this is my favorite week of the year.  It’s so rewarding to hear 25 kids singing “we are healthy kids and we’re going to stay that way,” watching them willfully eat healthy snacks and play active games, and develop friendships and healthy habits that last beyond the week of camp.  Right now, the kids are engaging in an obstacle course outside my office, laughing and running, hardly noticing they are exercising.  This morning’s walk took kids around the neighborhood, including a trip to the Healthy Kidz Community Garden on Minnie Street and past the school.  The students are already preparing for the Healthy Happening with their families on Friday by making fruit cobbler in cooking class and creating skits and songs to perform during the program.  We can hardly wait to see what they come up with.

We’re especially grateful to all the KU Med students working as volunteers this week – we love the energy and enthusiasm they bring to camp!  Stay tuned for more stories and photos from camp this week.

We’re switching websites, so stay tuned as we transition from our section of Rosedale Development Association’s website to our very own!  Feel free to give us input on site design in the space below.