Baptist Health Madisonville announces Project Fit America grant winner
Crofton Elementary awarded Project Fit America grant for 2017-2018 school year
Baptist Health Madisonville awards Project Fit America grant
(Madisonville, Ky.) June 1, 2017 —Crofton Elementary school will receive a grant from Baptist Health Madisonville to launch Project Fit America this fall. Project Fit America is a national non-profit public charity that creates and administers exemplary fitness in education programming in elementary and middle schools.
Baptist Health has invested nearly $17,000 to provide the fitness program that will include indoor and outdoor fitness equipment, teacher training and curriculum materials over the next two years to Crofton Elementary. The program will help increase fitness levels through fun and innovative activities customized to the school and their students in an effort to combat increasing obesity rates and to create lifelong healthy habits.
Lori Dexter, principal at Crofton Elementary said that at Crofton they felt the need to focus on health and wellness to align with their school goal of teaching the whole child. “With video gaming on the rise and limited sports offerings at the elementary level, Project Fit America will give our students access and opportunity to grow in this area,” added Dexter.
“My intent is to educate the students in my care to be successful members of their community,” said Paul Hooke, physical education teacher at Crofton Elementary. “Academics are an important part of the educational experience, but alone will not lead to student success. I want my students to be well-rounded and for that to happen they must grow socially, emotionally, morally, and physically.” “One of our deficit areas for students outside of school is learning to take care of their physical needs to have a healthy life. With the gift of Project Fit America, Baptist Health Madisonville will provide the tools we need to teach this skill to our students,” added Hooke.
This grant brings to 11 the total number of schools to receive Project Fit America grants from Baptist Health Madisonville since 2014. Previous grant recipients have included Grapevine, West Broadway and Pride Elementary schools in Hopkins County, Longest and Central City Elementary schools in Muhlenberg County, Freedom, Pembroke, and Sinking Fork Elementary schools in Christian County, Sebree Elementary in Webster County and Whitesville Elementary in Daviess County.
Robert Ramey, president of Baptist Health Madisonville said the program exemplifies the hospital’s focus on health and community wellness. “We know childhood obesity can lead to health problems such as high blood pressure and Type 2 diabetes,” Ramey said. “We also know children learn better when they are healthy. Baptist Health and Project Fit America are perfect partners for helping our schools improve our students’ health and thereby improve their academic achievement.”
About Project Fit America (PFA)
PFA is a national nonprofit organization that creates sustainable and innovative broad based fitness programs in schools. PFA programming includes state-of-the-art outdoor fitness equipment specifically designed to address the deficit areas where children fail fitness tests; indoor fitness equipment; a dynamic curriculum with games, activities and challenges; on-site teacher training and in-class instruction on subjects such as smoking intervention, nutrition and understanding your body. PFA is in its 26th year of working with schools in nearly 1,000 schools in over 300 cities in 46 states. Schools report increased motivation, participation and physical improvements in their students, along with parents and faculty becoming more involved in choosing fitness activities over sedentary lifestyle habits.