To fight childhood obesity, the Sunrise Drive Physical education instructors Joanne Hamilton and Reade Sands have launched “The Mileage Club.”

This new and exciting program is designed to encourage children to become more active. Once a week during recess, the Third-, Fourth-, and Fifth-grade students utilize school pedometers to count their steps. They may also purchase their own pedometers to count their steps daily.  Even if they do not have a pedometer, the students count their laps as they walk, jog, or run around the school’s grass fields on the north and south sides during recess.  The Mileage Club logs their steps/miles at PE Central website, PECLOGIT.Org  which tracks their progress.  Creating mile goals, going on virtual hikes, and competing with other students, classes, or schools at an equivalent grade level are ways to stimulate renewed enthusiasm. 

Administered by the Youth Service America, the UnitedHealth HEROES Service-Learning Grant awarded Sunrise Drive $500 to purchase chains and toe-tokens as motivational tools to keep the students moving.

.
Children and youth can be the first-responders to this national crisis, Challenging today’s youth to find solutions to health issues that directly affect them, the HEROES program supports youth-led projects that combat childhood obesity and encourage healthy lifestyles.

Sunrise Drive officially opened a 400m track on the south playground to support Youth Service Day which was April 24, 2009.  Sunrise’s Pedometer captains and Amazing Feets leaders invited the teachers, administrators, and dignitaries County Executive Steve Levy and Assemblywoman Ginny Fields, who came to support this new program that fights childhood obesity, to walk one lap around the track.

Happy to report on the success of the program, several Sunrise Drive students offered their impressions.  Jared Bergen remarked, “I was so happy to be a part of this amazing event.  This day will definitely stay in with me!” Nicholas Burkel added, “The track will continue to keep kids healthy, “ and Jillian Brudi felt,  “This ceremony was a great way to open the track.”