At the beginning of June, the Clairton Education Center, a Live Well Allegheny School, celebrated the beginning of summer with a Summer Food Program kickoff event. The kickoff event was held during the last week of school and provided families with information about the Summer Food Service Program. Participants enjoyed a cookout and activities for families and children. Several organizations including Economic Development South, the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, the Allegheny County Health Department, and UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh provided health and safety activities for children during the event.

The Summer Food Service Program (SFSP) is a national program of the USDA that provides free meals to kids in the summer months. SFSP ensures that low-income children receive nutritious meals when school is not in session. Through the program, local sponsors like churches and community organizations provide meals and activities to children ages 18 and under.

Allegheny County boasts nearly 300 distribution sites. The distribution sites, which range from churches to parks, provide free summer meals and fun activities to Allegheny County youth throughout the summer months. The Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank’s SFSP outreach initiative seeks to increase participation in the program by offering information, best practices, marketing support, and technical assistance to local sites.

Anyone 18 and under can attend Summer Food Program sites throughout the summer. Wondering how you can find a summer food site near you? To find a site in your neighborhood, text “FOOD” to 877-877 or call 2-1-1 for the United Way hotline to hear site locations and meal schedules. You can also visit USDA’s Summer Meal Site Finder to find a site in your community.

The holiday season is upon us. For most of us, cold weather and holiday parties are the perfect recipe for avoiding healthy habits. Although the season is full of magic and holiday cheer, family traditions and festivities often contribute to unhealthy behaviors like overeating, inactivity, and stress. The temptation to indulge at end of the year makes it the perfect time to remember the benefits of physical activity.

On November 12, the US Department of Health and Human Services released the Physical Activity Guidelines for Americans, 2^nd edition, which serves as a reminder of the amount of physical activity needed to maintain or improve overall health and reduce the risk of chronic disease. The guide emphasizes the importance of incorporating physical activity as part of your lifestyle at a young age. In fact, kids and teens ages 6 to 17 need 60 minutes of physical activity every day. While it can be challenging to encourage kids to be active, schools are in a unique position to help youth develop healthy habits.

Riverview School District, a Live Well Allegheny School, is providing opportunities for their students to focus on health and wellness. On November 20^th, students at Riverview Junior-Senior High School celebrated physical activity at the second annual Turkey Trot, a school-wide health and wellness event. The event featured three physical activity stations, healthy snacks, and a donation drive.

Students participated in an obstacle course walk/run, a boot camp exercise, and yoga. The school partnered with the U.S. Marines to facilitate the boot camp exercise, which involved strength-training activities and team building. Additionally, a local yoga studio, Homegrown Yoga, led the students in a 30-minute yoga session. The three activity stations provided students with skills to build physical endurance and strength and to reduce stress. To encourage student participation, students who completed all three stations had a chance to win an Amazon gift card. Riverview’s Turkey Trot is a great example of how schools can prioritize lifelong health in a fun and engaging way. Live Well Allegheny congratulates Riverview on the success of the event and looks forward to the third annual Turkey Trot!

Have you ever wondered how mental health affects teens’ performance at school? Or how poor vision could impact students’ academic achievement? Or maybe you are curious about whether students who receive free and reduced school lunches feel food insecure? These are questions that the students at Steel Valley School District, a Live Well Allegheny member, are exploring through student-led research projects. The students are part of the Pitt-Bridge to College Program (Pitt-Bridge). Pitt-Bridge provides a framework wherein students choose a community health topic, engage in community-based participatory research, and develop an intervention based on research findings.

Pitt-Bridge is an extracurricular program that includes Science, Technology, Research Engineering, Arts and Mathematics (STREAM) learning through health science clubs. The health science clubs offer an opportunity to participate in student-led, relevant community health research. The program prepares students to effectively work with others and become STREAM leaders in their community. The goals of the program are to increase the number of students entering and graduating from college, and to improve community health through student-led and facilitated research and education projects. Pitt-Bridge specifically targets underserved communities in developing its school-based health science clubs.

Currently, Steel Valley hosts three health science clubs – two at the high school, and one at the middle school. On April 21st, Steel Valley hosted a Health and Wellness Fair featuring the Pitt-Bridge students’ research projects. Students involved in the Pitt-Bridge Program presented results from their research projects on relevant community health topics that affect the student body, and the broader community. Divided into three sessions, students and community experts came together to share information and resources with families and community members on each topic.

The first of three projects presented focused on determining whether social isolation was a problem at Steel Valley. The group produced and distributed a survey to other students, and found that approximately 30 percent of students felt isolated. In response to the research findings, the students created a support group to offer a space for peer-to-peer interaction, problem-solving, and friendship-building. The session also featured mental health specialists who work with individuals for counseling, suicide prevention, and managing stress through mindfulness.

The second project focused on “the right to sight” – or vision care for all people. The project considered the connection between vision and success in school, and featured information and resources around vision care in the community. The third and final topic was on food insecurity in Steel Valley. The health science club students conducted survey research about whether students feel food insecure. All students at Steel Valley are eligible for free school lunch due to  a provision under the Healthy, Hunger Free Kids Act of 2010. While the research findings indicated that the students are not feeling food insecure, the survey indicated a desire for healthier options at school lunch. Currently, the club is working on connecting students with the food service department to expand food choice at lunch.

Pitt-Bridge offers an opportunity for students to engage in community health research, learn from peers and experts, and make progress towards higher education. Pitt-Bridge is looking to expand the program into additional schools for the 2018-2019 school year. If you are a Live Well Allegheny School, and are interested in participating in the program, please contact Dr. Robert Branch at rab13@pitt.edu.

At Live Well Allegheny, we know healthy lifestyle changes can be a hard sell. Living a healthy life can be difficult without the support of your community. Our Live Well Allegheny partners make a healthy choice the easy choice by using innovation and creativity to promote health and wellness in our communities, schools, workplaces, and restaurants. Woodland Hills School District (WHSD), a Live Well Allegheny school, is helping its students prioritize health and wellness with its Live Well Afterschool Program, and other wellness initiatives.

Students at WHSD learn lifelong health and wellness information in the Live Well After School Program, a semester-long after-school program focused on healthy living. The program started in 2011 with funding from the Heinz Endowments. The voluntary effort is offered for grades 8-12, with curriculum for the program connecting evidence-based health information with interactive lessons to encourage student engagement and participation.

The Live Well After School Program is three pronged, with focuses on healthy nutrition, lifelong physical activity, and stress management. Students learn practical skills related to nutrition like grocery shopping on a budget and using foods to increase their vitamin intake. Students also learn different types of physical activity they can use throughout their life, such as line dancing, yoga, hiking, and Zumba. To ensure student engagement, the program relies heavily on interactive learning, which has been essential to the success of the program. While there are some classroom-based lessons, students spend most of the time on activities that encourage movement and hands-on learning. The curriculum includes projects like gardening to encourage hands-on learning. Through the garden project, students started seedlings in a hydroponic garden and repotted the plants in the school’s greenhouse. The afterschool students are responsible for planting and maintaining the plants, which are open to use by all students at the school. The students have grown a variety of herbs and lettuces in the garden project.

In addition to the after-school program, WHSD promotes health and wellness through programs that reach its full student body and the broader community. To ensure that all students are receiving messages about health and wellness, WHSD sends daily living well messages that cover a wide variety of health topics. For elementary students, the school hosts living well family fun nights. WHSD partners with University of Pittsburgh School of Nursing students to provide interactive health information, games, and food to elementary students and their families. The school also partnered with Jump with Jill, a music-based health program for kids that uses rock music to teach nutrition, to provide schools with healthy nutrition assemblies. In addition to reaching its student body, WHSD is also expanding its health and wellness message to the broader community. Last summer, the school participated in a community day with eleven communities. During the community day, the school had a tent with health and wellness activities for people of all ages. Through the wellness initiatives at the schools, WHSD is promoting health and wellness to its students and the community.

Have you ever thought about how our fruits and vegetables are grown? How farmers grow those perfectly crisp apples? Or even, how many of those apples grow on one tree? These were the questions that first grade students at Curtisville Primary Center in the Deer Lakes School District, a Live Well Allegheny School, had for local apple farmer, Jeff Norman. Thanks to the school’s Farmer Direct Series, they had a chance to get some answers.

On October 2, Mr. Norman of Norman’s Orchard, located in Tarentum, spent the morning teaching first graders the ins-and-outs of the apple-growing business. Students had the opportunity to learn about different varieties of apples that are local to Western Pennsylvania. Mr. Norman also talked to the students about planting and harvesting, differences in varieties and ways to cook apples. He answered many questions about the specifics of growing and operating an orchard. And at the end of the presentation, students enjoyed a snack of Norman’s Orchard apples and caramel dip.

The visit from Mr. Norman was part of Curtisville Primary Center’s Farmer Direct Series. Local farmers are invited to visit the school and talk to students about farming practices and local produce. Through the Farmer Direct Series students can learn from a different type of farmer every month. This provides an opportunity for students to make a connection between the fruits and vegetables they eat and the growing practices of local farmers.

The Farmer Direct Series is just one piece of a larger wellness initiative at Curtisville Primary Center. For Principal Jennifer Cavalancia, incorporating lessons about nutrition and wellness is an important piece of the curriculum. The students at Curtisville Primary Center do not just learn about nutrition and wellness in the classroom, they get down in the dirt. They have helped plant fruit trees in the school yard and have grown lettuce and herbs in tower gardens. School wellness initiatives can provide creative methods for peaking kids’ interest in fruits and vegetables. We are very excited to see schools like Curtisville Primary Center prioritizing health and wellness in education!