Sankofa Mobile Market Visits ARISE Academy for the Sankofa HEAL Fair

Last Thursday May 14, 2015 we hosted a health fair for Arise Academy Elementary School.

For this event we decided it was time to roll in our Mobile Market with activities for the HEAL students to interact with fresh fruits and vegetables!

 The students played a fruit and veggie trivia game to be introduced and more engaged with the Market produce. Each child received a card containing a fun fact about a particular vegetable.  For example, one of the cards stated : "Which fruit can take up to 3 years to grow?"  The students then guessed the answer by selecting one of the fruits on the Mobile Market truck.

In case you want to know, the correct answer is pineapple ! After completing the activity, we all tasted the fruits and vegetables.

Another fun activity at the HEAL Fair was smoothie-making booth! The HEAL students measured various ingredients to prepare a smoothie with papaya, pineapple, banana and kale! Many of the 'smoothie makers' said they liked their smoothies and would try making it a home with their parents.

A dancing station was also at the HEAL Fair. Students learned the steps to the dance created for Let’s Move, an initiative launched by First Lady Michelle Obama's to combat the childhood obesity epidemic and encourage a healthy lifestyle.

Overall, everyone had lots of fun and learned easy things that we can all do to lead a healthier life.

Go ahead and take a minute to look at this video that captures some of our fun moments at the HEAL Fair!

http://www.magisto.com/album/video/cXwiTFNcGFI4dy0PYnZLAXE

HEAL students cooked for seniors in the garden!

Last Tuesday we had the pleasure to host the Lower 9^th Ward Senior Douglass Learning Garden, our school garden at ARISE Academy. Given the occasion, the HEAL Project students prepared something special for the seniors who visited.

Seniors and students after the presentation

 It all started with a MyPlate presentation led by 6 HEAL students from Ms. Dorothy Parker’s 5^th -6^th grade class. The students presented on the importance of eating a variety of fruits and vegetables, especially those with dark colors.

Students presenting MyPlate to seniors

After the Myplate presentation, the students conducted a two-course healthy snack cooking demonstration. For the first course, they prepared cucumber sandwiches with “a twist”.  The students used cucumbers in place of sandwich bread to create a healthy and easy, low-carb snack. The cucumber sandwiches were filled with Swiss cheese and lean turkey, and they were finished with mustard and horseradish sauce.  

Townsend serving a cucumber sandwich to Ms.Anne

For the second course, HEAL students prepared a three-ingredient strawberry frozen yogurt treat.

After blending vanilla Greek yogurt and frozen strawberries, the students topped it off with fresh bananas for a hint of sweetness!

Students serving the strawberry frozen yogurt

Michael serving strawberry frozen yogurt 

This was definitely just the first of many other activities that will bring the two generations of elders and children together. It was beautiful to see our students take leadership of a health education demonstration with their community elders. They demonstrated mutual respect and acknowledgment of the seniors and one another during their presentation.

When asked what he liked most about the event, Michael, one of our students said, “My favorite part of the event today was serving the people.”