WASHINGTON, Feb. 27, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today at
its fourth annual Building a Healthier Future Summit, the
Partnership for a Healthier America announced that its first
automotive partner, as well as five new Let's Move! Active
Schools partners, committed to making healthier choices easier for
busy parents and families.
Mercedes-Benz USA and Athletes
for Hope, GoNoodle, Good Sports, Kids in the Game and Safe Routes
to School National Partnership joined the Partnership for a
Healthier America (PHA) ranks by making commitments to address
physical activity among America's youth. During the second day of
PHA's 2015 Building a Healthier Future Summit, these organizations
announced their individual commitments to make physical activity
and physical education available in school and out of school. PHA,
which is hosting the Summit, works with the private sector and its
honorary chair First Lady Michelle
Obama to solve the nation's childhood obesity crisis.
"Today, Mercedes-Benz USA and
our newest Let's Move! Active Schools supporters are making
long-term, meaningful commitments to help end childhood obesity,"
said PHA CEO Lawrence Soler. "We are
proud that our first automotive partner has joined us in this
fight, and that the commitment to Let's Move! Active Schools
continues to grow. We look forward to all these new partners will
do to help today's youth stay active and healthy."
Mercedes-Benz USA (MBUSA) committed to building a
national youth development, sports-based coaching force to increase
the quality and quantity of youth physical activity programming.
MBUSA will invest more than $10
million over the next three years to provide grants to
Laureus USA, which helps identify,
train, place and support sport-based youth development coaches and
organizations nationwide.
Mercedes estimates this investment will impact 125,000 kids per
year over three years.
"Investing in our youth and giving back to our local communities
are integral to the culture at Mercedes-Benz USA," said Stephen
Cannon, president and CEO of MBUSA. "Our ongoing
collaboration and commitment to Laureus USA combines our passion for community and
sports in a way that is making an impact. We look forward to
continue helping kids across the country build healthier
futures."
Specifically, Mercedes-Benz USA, through its investment in Laureus
USA, is making the following
commitments:
- Provide grants to organizations that train and place more than
1,000 coaches in after-school sport for development programs in
schools across 25 cities.
- Encourage all organizations receiving grants to align with
PHA's Seven Essential Practices for Kid's Physical Activity
Programs.
- Strengthen sport for development programs and provide financial
support and resources for organizations that use sports programming
to deliver positive social, emotional and health outcomes for
youth. Critical to that effort is Laureus USA's Model City Initiative, which provided
capacity-building grants to six local youth sports organizations in
its first model city, New
Orleans.
Athletes for Hope, GoNoodle, Good Sports, Kids in the Game and
Safe Routes to School National Partnership, made the commitment to
join Let's Move! Active Schools, a national collaborative
aimed at ensuring 60 minutes of physical activity a day is the new
norm in schools across the country. These organizations will
provide grant opportunities and resources to help create active
school environments and ensure a healthy way of life for our
nation's youth.
Since its March 2013 launch, more
than 14,300 schools have registered for Let's Move! Active
Schools, and more than 8 million students have been impacted by the
initiative. Let's Move! Active Schools strives to reach
50,000 schools and 25 million students by 2018.
Specifically, the organizations joining Let's Move! Active
Schools are making the following commitments:
- Athletes for Hope, a nonprofit organization that works
with athletes who seek to make a difference in the world, will
administer an athlete visit program, connecting schools with sports
leaders who can speak with students about the importance of
physical activity.
- GoNoodle, which produces short desk-side physical
activities to help teachers manage their classroom and improve
student performance, will conduct targeted outreach campaigns to
help teachers incorporate physical activity into the school
day.
- Good Sports, which provides athletic equipment, footwear
and apparel to disadvantaged young people nationwide, will offer
sports equipment grant application priority for schools enrolled in
Let's Move! Active Schools.
- Kids in the Game (KITG), a nonprofit organization
focused on inspiring kids to thrive in life through sports, will
make available $250,000 in grant
funds exclusively for schools enrolled in Let's Move! Active
Schools.
- The Safe Routes to School National Partnership, a
network of organizations, government agencies and professional
groups working to advance safe walking and bicycling to improve the
health and well-being of children, will increase its commitment to
Let's Move! Active Schools by making a portion of its Fire
Up Your Feet (FUYF) Challenge Awards available exclusively to
schools enrolled in Let's Move! Active Schools.
The Partnership for a Healthier America (PHA) is devoted to
working with the private sector to ensure the health of our
nation's youth by solving the childhood obesity crisis. In 2010,
PHA was created in conjunction with – but independent from – First
Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move!
effort. PHA is a nonpartisan nonprofit organization that is led by
some of the nation's most respected health and childhood obesity
experts. PHA brings together public, private and nonprofit leaders
to broker meaningful commitments and develop strategies to end
childhood obesity. Most important, PHA ensures that commitments
made are commitments kept by working with unbiased third parties to
monitor and publicly report on the progress our partners are
making. For more information about PHA, please visit
www.aHealthierAmerica.org and follow PHA on Twitter
@PHAnews.
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SOURCE Partnership for a Healthier America