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| Local HEAL program scrutinized for national publicity By Stacy Trevenon--[ stacy@hmbreview.com ] Published/Last Modified on Wednesday, October 17, 2007 3:52 PM PDT On a drizzly Tuesday afternoon, Hatch Elementary School hosted Kaiser Permanente representatives who'd flown into the Bay Area that morning to look closely at a healthy-eating program that took root there. Two representatives flew into Oakland for a whirlwind tour of local Kaiser-funded programs, with a goal of choosing one to be publicized in Kaiser Permanente's national, internal advertising campaign to build up community-benefit programs like the Healthy Eating Active Living program. HEAL, a garden-based nutritional, educational and activity program for elementary school kids, already has Kaiser's approval. The synergy began in November of 2005 when the Coastside Health Committee received a $45,000 grant from Kaiser Permanente to pilot the program. It continues to be funded through Kaiser in South San Francisco and Redwood City, said program head Lisa Hellerich. (Other funders include the Silicon Valley Community Foundation, the Hatch school PTO and Principal Mark Loos, the Half Moon Bay Beautification Committee and the California Department of Education.) A Kaiser marketing department producer and a senior designer, stopped by Hatch briefly Tuesday en route to other sites in Novato and Oakland, "I think just to get the general atmosphere of the program to share with their marketing team," said Hellerich. They asked questions about the school's garden club and its participants, some of them children of local farmers. They took extensive photos of an existing photo display of Coastside kids working in the HEAL garden, participating in sports as part of the HEAL fitness program, delivering produce to the school's lunch room, the produce stand built by a local Eagle Scout from which the kids sell their produce, and the lunch room. They also scrutinized the garden, in which cabbage, mixed greens, flowers, pumpkins, zucchini and squash are planted. By the end of the week, said Hellerich, they should have made a decision about which program to select for publicity to be circulated within the Kaiser internal media. She said she thinks HEAL got high marks from the visitors, who were also enthused about future plans to expand the program into other Coastside elementary schools. "I think what they were referring to was not just the garden and fitness, but something like HEAL has - nutrition, fitness, the garden, agriculture and environmental studies, community connections - a comprehensive program," Hellerich said. "That's the impression I got." |