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Activate Pittsburgh
Healthy Kids Day
The YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh offers programs that serve more than 1.4 million participants each year and include after-school care and childcare, outdoor camping, community outreach, sports, health and fitness, youth counseling and senior assistance. The YMCA is committed to offering high quality programs in all communities and provides access to them regardless of an individual’s ability to pay. Working together, the YMCA board, staff and volunteers have identified five areas of focus for our programs and services: Community Outreach, Family Programming, Literacy, Quality Standards and Health and Wellness.
The YMCA understands that we cannot afford to lose ground in our battle against inactivity, weight gain and poor health. We are facing a public health emergency that requires all sectors of the community to come together and collectively develop a unified strategy to restore and protect the health of our community.
The YMCA of Greater Pittsburgh is one of 14 original local YMCAs across the country launching Activate America: Pioneering Healthier Communities, a national YMCA initiative to energize local communities to take control of health and wellness issues. Activate America has been dubbed "Activate Pittsburgh" for a hometown feel.
The objective of the national Activate America initiative is to develop community-based programs that address our nation’s epidemic of chronic disease and obesity. With support from national sponsors JC Penney After School Program, Kimberly-Clark Corporation and Aquafina and the federal Department of Human Services, Activate America will develop ‘best practices’ strategies and programs to build and sustain healthier communities. We can then efficiently and quickly roll these programs out to the other
3,000 YMCAs across the country. In Pittsburgh, the YMCA has created partnerships with other organizations to develop and implement health and wellness programs at the Y’s 16 locations in western Pennsylvania and at schools, community centers, corporate locations and elsewhere.
Our deep community roots help Activate Pittsburgh reach the four groups it has targeted locally:
- Racial and ethnic communities below the poverty line
- Children and teens
- Older adults
- Start/stop population, those who can’t sustain a commitment to healthy living
The YMCA focuses its Activate Pittsburgh community initiatives on:
- Establishing wellness programs at schools, workplaces, faith-based organizations and community centers
- Increasing opportunities at schools for physical activity by all students
- Partnering with restaurants, grocery stores and senior centers to increase healthy food choices
- Increasing access to health care in low-income communities
- Increasing people’s access to places for physical activity
- Supporting the efforts of individuals to stop smoking.
The programs, relationships and education that this initiative generates directly addresses the health status of Pittsburgh. Activate Pittsburgh allows us to be even more effective as stewards for health and wellness.
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