$20M donation to benefit Healthy Schools program
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — A New Jersey philanthropic foundation is giving $20 million to a program designed to promote healthy eating and exercise in schools.
The Alliance for a Healthier Generation is to use the money from the Princeton, N.J.-based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to help schools in 17 states, including the Palmetto State, attack obesity in children.
The Alliance, which is a partnership of the Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association, says about 8,000 schools will be able to get in-person support for anti-obesity programs by 2010.
The new grants will be available to schools in states with the highest obesity rates: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Tennessee and West Virginia.
In South Carolina, students are already supposed to participate in regular physical activity and have access to healthy snacks and lunchroom fare.
The S.C. Student Health and Fitness Act, which went into effect at the start of school last year, requires students in kindergarten through fifth grade to receive an hour of physical education and 90 minutes of physical activity each week. The law also mandates that students be exposed to healthier foods.
Sodas, sweetened juices and sports drinks have been banned from school cafeterias and vending machines. The cafeterias are offering more fruits and vegetables while providing smaller portions of side dishes. In some districts, middle school vending machines are filled with water, 100 percent juice and snacks such as baked chips.
The school dietary regulations also extend to extra-curricular activities, which traditionally are supported by sugary snacks. Parent groups that used to sell brownies and doughnuts for fundraisers have been asked to switch to fruit, trail mix or other low-fat snacks.
The Alliance is led by former President Bill Clinton and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Currently, technical assistance from the Alliance is available to only 230 schools across the country.
The state's Healthy Schools program began last year with an $8 million grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Its organizers say the money is already helping. They point to an after-school program at W.C. Britt Elementary in Snellville, Ga., that gets children playing wall soccer and a healthy foods lunch menu at Twin Bluff Middle in Red Wing, Minn., which students say they like.
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