PRESQUE ISLE, Maine — The Boys and Girls Club of Presque Isle has received a grant from The Walmart Foundation to support its Healthy Habits health and wellness programs for the coming new year.
The funds are part of the foundation’s $500,000 partnership with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America to provide greater healthy lifestyle education to Native youth across the country. The local club is one of 26 Native clubs to receive a grant.
Healthy Habits is part of the BGCA’s award-winning program covering mind, body and soul. Programming addresses the mind aspect, daily challenges encourage kids to be active every day (the body) and social recreation addresses the soul component.
“This program and others like it, which promote a healthy lifestyle through healthy choices, have a powerful impact on young people,” said Fenton Jones, unit director of the club. “Thanks to new funding from the Walmart Foundation we can help our club members and their families make the change to a healthier lifestyle.”
“Through this partnership, we will have the resources to promote a healthy club environment, conduct cooking demonstrations, hold social events like a community dinners to promote healthy lifestyles, keep the youth gardening Initiative funded and provide for an expansion of the community garden,” Jones said.
Micmac youth will learn about food selection and preparation within a cultural context, focusing on indigenous food like corn, berries, bean, trout and moose.
“We are extremely thankful to the generosity of the Walmart Foundation and the hard work of Boys and Girls Clubs of America in advocating for our youth,” stated Nichole Francis, CEO of the Penobscot Boys and Girls Club, which oversees the local organization.
“Instilling a lifelong custom of healthy food choices while engaging in real-life, hands-on practice serves to reduce the instance of disease and supports our community in becoming a healthier generation,” Francis said.
The BGCA is dedicated to strengthening Native youths’ cultural identity through programming that explicitly promotes positive growth and development along critical cultural, social, emotional, intellectual and physical dimensions.
