Kaiser Permanente grant to Elk Grove schools will help students and teachers be more active, eat healthier

Students and teachers in the Elk Grove Unified School District will soon implement a new wellness program thanks to a Thriving Schools grant from Kaiser Permanente.

The district’s grant of $23,000, which includes $1,000 grants to 21 elementary and middle schools, will be used to start Fire Up Your Feet, a program that will integrate with and augment Project AWARE Safe Routes to School program for the calendar year beginning January 1.

“Through our partnership with Kaiser Permanente, we continue to motivate staff, students and the community to take charge of their personal health. In this case, the grant encourages students to stay active and build lifelong healthy habits,” said Superintendent Steven M. Ladd, Ed.D. “We are grateful for Kaiser Permanente’s continued partnership with Elk Grove Unified.”

The Community Benefit grants are just one part of Kaiser Permanente's new Thriving Schools initiative to build healthy, sustainable communities by creating a culture of health in schools. It provides prevention-focused, evidence-based wellness tools -- at no cost -- to any school. By helping students, staff, and teachers be more active and eat more healthfully, schools can have a positive impact on the health of the community and likely improve academic and professional performance at the same time.

 The health care organization is awarding 15 Thriving Schools grants across Northern California this year to increase physical activity and improve healthy food offerings for students and teachers at their schools.

“The KP Thriving Schools initiative is focused on making healthy choices easy, accessible, and a part of everyday life in our schools,” said Yvette Radford, vice president of External and Community Affairs in Northern California. “This initiative is one of the cornerstones of our organizational commitment to the total health of our members and the communities that we serve. It also builds on our many years of work with schools in our community.”

The Thriving Schools grant is the latest award from Kaiser Permanente to help improve the health of students in the Elk Grove Unified School District. Since 2011, Kaiser Permanente has awarded the district more than $175,000 in Community Benefit grants for dental screening and immunization clinics, a teen parenting program, and wellness initiatives, including Thriving Schools.

Thriving Schools also features Fire Up Your Feet, a new online program developed by the Safe Routes to School National Partnership in collaboration with Kaiser Permanente and the National PTA. The program’s goal is to improve the health of students, teachers, and families by encouraging safe walking, bicycling, and other physical activities with online tools free for anyone to use.  

For more information, visit kp.org/communitybenefit/ncal. To learn more about Thriving Schools, visit kp.org/thrivingschools.