Community, school, and city officials worked together to develop a shared use agreement to use school grounds to create a community park at Sky Harbour Elementary School in San Antonio, Texas, with a playground, exercise equipment, trails, and an amphitheater that is open after school hours. The effort illustrates how city officials, a non-profit organization, a school district, a P.E. coach, students, parents, and members from the community can work together to bring important improvements to the physical environment that can increase local options for physical activity. Each of these stakeholders saw the need for more play space in the community and supported a shared use agreement to guarantee access to Sky Harbour’s recreational facilities on school grounds after school hours. From ...
MHP (formerly known as Migrant Health Promotion) and Alice Independent School District partner to create a shared use agreement to make school-owned recreational areas—gyms, playgrounds, parks, and walking trails—available to the public after school hours, adding a much-needed physical activity option in a largely Latino population, at high risk of obesity and related health complications.
EMERGENCE
Awareness: Robert De Leon, a former program director at MHP—an organization that has provided leadership in health promotion, program development, and advocacy for migrant farmworkers and their families and other isolated communities since 1983—was increasingly concerned about high obesity rates in South Texas. In 2011, MHP applied for a Texas Health Initiative’s Community ...
After years of trying to land a new park, residents of Earlimart, Calif., can now celebrate the success of a shared use agreement and soon-to-be-built 4-acre park. Residents living in the small rural community of Earlimart, Calif., lacked outdoor spaces for the physical activity they needed to develop and maintain healthy lifestyles and weights. The Earlimart School District’s superintendent responded to this need by trying an experiment. She had the custodial staff at one school leave the school gate open. Word got around that the school’s gate had been left open—soon the school’s field was filled with local residents. This experiment ultimately led to a change in the school district’s policy, which allows Tulare county residents from non-affiliated groups to use the school ...
Edison High School students, families and community members partner with school officials to open school’s new lighted track for a regular walking program. EMERGENCE
Awareness: Toward the beginning of her sophomore year, Edison High School student Brianna Reynosa began to notice there had been some changes to her school’s lunch menu.
“It started with the new lunch menu. When I noticed the changes in the menu, I asked [Edison Principal] Mr. [Charles] Munoz about it and he began to tell me about how obesity was a problem in the community, and how he wanted the students at Edison to be healthy,” Brianna said. Before, Brianna hadn’t really stopped to think about the consequences that come with making unhealthy lifestyle choices. She began to think about her ...
Atop a hill in East Los Angeles, Ramirez Meat Market has spent three decades as a neighborhood fixture. However, the market hasn’t been a beacon of health. Celia Ramirez, who has owned the store for the last 10 years, runs it by herself following her husband’s death in an automobile accident. Now, with some community help, Ramirez transformed her meat market from a typical junk-food-filled corner store into a place that where the community can find nutritious food options and embrace a healthier lifestyle.
EMERGENCE
Awareness: East L.A. is an urban community that is 96% Latino and has high rates of obesity-related chronic diseases. Small corner stores and meat markets are abundant in the community, but sell mostly junk food and few fresh fruits and vegetables, and/or poorly ...
Parent organization Real Food for Kids (RFFK) aims to improve the nutritional quality of food served at the public schools in Fairfax County, Va. These parents want all students to get healthy, fresh food that will fuel their bodies for physical and educational performance. As stated on their website: “We know, just as you do, that when a child is well-fed with nutritious, real food, he/she is healthier, better behaved and better able to succeed in and out of the classroom.” By doing research and educating themselves, they discovered the volume and breadth of processed foods and foods with artificial dyes and additives being served at their schools, even though these foods were allowed by USDA nutrition guidelines for school lunches. The parent group advocated for a new ...
In communities where parks and land-space are limited, shared use agreements are providing more areas of recreation for children. Spartanburg, S.C., for example, has a growing Latino population but not enough active spaces. Although the idea of sharing space in Spartanburg had existed for some time, formalizing shared use agreements between the City and two school districts—Spartanburg County School District 6 and Spartanburg County School District 7—took about two years. Thanks to the collaboration of the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, the two school districts, and various community organizations, Spartanburg now has a shared use policy that keeps 10 school playgrounds open to the community during non-school hours.
EMERGENCE Awareness: Since the late 1990s, members ...
San Antonio pedestrians and cyclists will now have safer streets and walkways thanks to the implementation of the citywide Complete Streets policy. This San Antonio Complete Streets policy has not only helped those living in the city’s Westside, a largely Latino area, but has also paved the way for residents throughout the entire community to gain a better understanding of how an active-living-friendly environment can foster healthier lives.
EMERGENCE
Awareness: Health professionals, including David Clear and Kathy Shields of the San Antonio Metropolitan Health District (Metro Health), were beginning to see that obesity was a problem in the largely Latino city of San Antonio. Along with obesity, many also suffered from diabetes—of these, many were Latino. In 2004, Metro Health ...
Promotores working with the Chula Vista Community Collaborative (CVCC) participated in an asset mapping project, in a Latino-majority part of Chula Vista, Calif., in 2000. As part of a $5,000 grant for an adopt-a-block project—a joint effort of the San Diego County’s Substance Abuse Summit VI and the CVCC—promotores spoke with local residents to learn about the neighborhood’s assets, health, and safety concerns. It was then that they discovered a lack of active space in the community, and that residents wanted a park. Eventually, the promotores teamed up with community agencies, gathered information, and presented their case to the Chula Vista City Council. After receiving city approval, they gave input for the park’s design and watched construction of Harborside Park— the ...
