What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object? The immovable object gets transformed into something better!
I am the program manager for Let’s Go!’s School setting and because of my role here I frequently get opportunities to team up with really fantastic people, who are making great efforts to provide our children with better nutrition and more fun physical activity. One of my recent opportunities has been collaborating with the Maine Community Transformation Grant’s (CTG) efforts to increase physical activity and healthy eating in schools.
As part of this collaboration Heidi Kessler, program manager for Let’s Go!’s School Nutrition Program and I participated in a CTG technical assistance webinar, specifically focused around how CTG districts and Let’s Go! regions can collaborate to move school efforts even further. It was a fun webinar and allowed us to share why Let’s Go! has been so successful with schools, how collaboration with CTG will produce even more success, and ideas on what that collaboration can look like. It was a fun webinar and the participants had great questions and ideas, that I look forward to sharing as we continue to work together. If you were not part of the webinar I recommend checking it out:
Maine District CTG Monthly TA Conf Call (#8) Recording
Why is this so exciting? I’m glad you asked…
Because, for me, the collaboration between CTG, Let’s Go! and all of our state Dissemination Partners (Hospital Systems, Healthy Maine Partnerships, and Tribal Organizations implementing Let’s Go!), creates an unstoppable force, headed right towards poor nutrition and physical inactivity. It’s true physical inactivity, poor nutrition and the obesity epidemic can look like this great “immovable object”. After all, t’s not just sugar sweetened beverages, or just getting kids active, or just the kids living with overweight or obesity – all children are affected, etc. But when groups like ours come together combining solutions and resources, we can tackle more of those challenges and transform our communities into stronger and healthier places.
This collaboration will help better educate our children about healthier choices, transform our environments to help make that healthy choice the easy choice, and help communities create policies that say “we value these behaviors and this is how we make them happen!”
With that said, on behalf of Let’s Go!, I’d like to thank everyone who was a part of that webinar and who work so hard to keep our kids healthy. And special thanks to Dawn Littlefield, CTG Grant Manager for the Maine CDC for the opportunity to participate in this webinar and your generosity in extending the invitation to our state partners.