We won $500!

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My school won a $500 Target gift card for a healthy school program. It is up to me to use the money. It, unfortunately, cannot be used towards anything in my health office (supplies,etc.) It must be used for things to make our school healthier. The program suggested gym equipment or healthy snacks for kids. (We are an elementary school of about 200 Prek-6th)

The principal has suggested for me to work with the gym teacher to use this. Our gym teacher doesn't have a need for ANY supplies, he has a stockpile of pretty much any equipment that you could ever use.

Any ideas of what we could use the money for?

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Specializes in icu,prime care,mri,ct, cardiology, pacu,.

Have dietician come in to talk, sharing bowl fro the kids, target kids with backpacks who are poor with extra food for theses families. Simple healthy meals, or snacks the dietician can she to eat. Celery with pb, raisins,

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Specializes in School Nurse, past Med Surge.

What about getting all the kids & staff a water bottle with your school mascot on it?

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Specializes in school nursing, ortho, trauma.

i like the water bottle idea. I like the idea of doing an assembly where students learn some healthy snacks they can make at home and if money permits maybe be sent with some of the makings. How about toothbrushes, floss, toothpaste for all students and discussing dental health?

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I find it funny that "It must be used for things that make the school healthier". Isn't that the entire reason they have YOU??!?! Bothers me that they don't see this and won't just give it to you to decide. I do like the idea of water bottles. We give one out to every student so they can drink water all day and stay healthy :) You could also use it to host a Health Night. I do this every year. I go around to our local Target, Walmart, local dentists, and grocery stores and they donate healthy food/snacks (and dental supplies). I have the whole school come and we do a zumba class, proper brushing and flossing demonstrations, talk about healthy food choices, etc. I am in a low-income area, so not sure what your population is like, but they LOVE this night and look forward to it every year. $500 would get you a lot of stuff, especially if you can get local dentists to donate dental supplies. I got three different ones to donate toothpaste, tooth brushes, floss and even little prizes and stickers.

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Vitamix blender to make smoothies for healthier breakfast and lunch items with leftover/unused fruit.

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What about a bike safety class? We have alot of kids that ride bikes to school - every couple of years I ask our PTA to provide a bike safety night as part of their meeting - win/win situation, gets parents to participate in the PTA meeting and the kids get to do something fun - we contract with one of the large bike shops in the area - they have some loaner bikes, helmets etc or kids just ride their own bike to school for the program. Learn safety and have sort of a bike rodeo.

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Specializes in Peds, School Nurse, clinical instructor.

Love the water bottle idea!

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Specializes in school nursing, ortho, trauma.
Vitamix blender to make smoothies for healthier breakfast and lunch items with leftover/unused fruit.

my former school said something about taking the older milks and turning it into yogurt. i honestly don't know if they meant the school or the cafeteria staff doing it and taking it home or returning it for credit and the company doing that. I don't know much about making yogurt. In my world it comes from the dairy aisle and is coffee flavored. But if the legends are true and it's easy enough to do with stock milk that is expiring ( or milks that are taken and undrank, but still sealed) and then combined with leftover fruit (and veggies?!) then we just might have healthy treats for kids that they will drink.

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Specializes in School Nursing, Pediatrics.

CONGRATS! that is awesome!!!!

I like the water bottle idea as well!

But as PTO president at my kids school, we just bought the gym teachers 50 pairs of snow shoes! Not sure if you have snow, but maybe there is something they might want or haven't thought of, think of something different! The kids LOVE snow shoeing!

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Specializes in Trauma, Teaching.

I like the water bottle and bike helmet suggestions!

How about skate board safety and arm/knee pads?

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