Let's Get 1 Million Indigenous People Moving!

Contributed by: HABIT4HEALTH

Completed 5/14/11 with 125 participants

This year hosted over 125 youth participants and about 300 total attendants.  Not only is May National Fitness Month, but this year celebrates the launch of the First Lady’s Let’s Move! In Indian Country; this was exciting since this event brings the parents and youth together for the purpose of health and wellness.  Clinical departments are not only the race officials, but also provided pamphlets and other educational materials to the community to inform them about the current best healthcare practices in their department.  Our guest speaker this year was Joseph Burton.  Joe is a member of the Soboba Band of Luiseno Indians and just completed his        sophomore year at Oregon State University.  Joe plays Power Forward & Center for the OSU   Beaver Basketball Team.  It was great to have a local role model speak and motivate the children to be active.

The mission of the Health Fair Native Youth Olympic Games is to give our community the tools to “Nurture Their Health Through Exercise” whether it is by competing in Olympics and, hopefully at a future event, in traditional cultural games, to strive toward wellness and physical fitness.  We look forward to our 2012 event, scheduled for May 19^th.  

 

Best Features:
The Birdsingers and the Awards Presentations.

Creative Features:
This year each of our race booths featured a Native American Role Model. The youth not only participated in the race, but received information about Native americans that have acceled and are well known due to their accomplishments. The participants really enjoyed this additional aspect of education.

Challenges:
The event was the same weekend as quite a few other community events. When we originally chose the date, their was no conflict, but as we got closer to the event, more programs were offering activities.

Future Plans:
To keep offering events and spreading the news of JMI!

Lessons Learned

We have all ready scheduled our date for next year, and have contacted other programs to let them know and to see if we can aviod the same weekend. So far so good!