SVSU hopes Fitness Fest will help kids, families deal with stress – Bennington Banner
Periods of rain and snow. Some sleet may mix in. Low 29F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of precip 90%. Snow accumulations less than one inch..
Periods of rain and snow. Some sleet may mix in. Low 29F. Winds SE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of precip 90%. Snow accumulations less than one inch.
Updated: December 18, 2021 @ 5:03 pm
Mount Anthony Union Middle School teacher Elizabeth Strassman, left, and Abbey Group food service manager Maureen O’Neill show how to make a tasty veggie and potato au gratin in a video for the SVSU’s winter Fitness Fest.
Mount Anthony Union Middle School teacher Elizabeth Strassman, left, and Abbey Group food service manager Maureen O’Neill show how to make a tasty veggie and potato au gratin in a video for the SVSU’s winter Fitness Fest.
BENNINGTON — There’s a lot of ways to get healthier, even in the midst of a pandemic.
Getting active is an obvious choice. So is choosing nutritious food.
Finding healthy ways to manage stress? That’s important, too, especially these days.
Those are the messages the Southwest Vermont Supervisory Union and its new health and wellness coach, Jan Weyant, are trying to get across with this winter’s SVSU Family Fitness Fest, a fun event for families during the winter break.
Fitness Fest is designed for students ages 4 to 14 and their families, and runs through the winter break, Dec. 20 through Dec. 31. It was paid for by a pair of grants, through The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the federal Medicaid Administrative Claiming annual reinvestment plan.
“Fitness Fest is built around getting kids to be outdoors and be active during the break by giving them fun challenges,” Weyant said.
“The other part is offering these food boxes we created with recipes that kids can go home and make with their families,” she said. The hope is the boxes — there were 60 available — will help address the food insecurity experienced by many families in the district.
The activities include:
• A fresh box of ingredients to make a vegetable and potato au gratin. The box comes with the ingredients needed, and those who signed up and received confirmation emails pick them up Monday at Mount Anthony Union Middle School or Fisher Elementary School from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m.
If you didn’t get a box, don’t worry: Participants can also find the recipe online at the SVSU site and gather the ingredients on their own.
A video with sustainability teacher Elizabeth Strassman and Abbey Group food service director Maureen O’Neill takes viewers through the recipe.
• An outdoor scavenger hunt asks kids and families to find common outdoor winter sights, such as berries, chimney smoke, pine needles and boot prints.
• A written exercise about gratitude asks participants what they’re grateful for. A video with Pownal Elementary School teacher Brent Kipp explains the emotional and physical health benefits of gratitude.
Students receive one ticket each for submitting a form, showing they’ve completed an activity. Those tickets will then be entered in a drawing, in which students can win Dion Snowshoes, saucer sleds, toboggans and disc golf sets.
Weyant said this year’s Fitness Fest is a way for the school community to address some of the symptoms of stress that teachers, students and families have been facing over the past two years.
Weyant, in her first year in the SVSU, moved here from Burlington, where she worked in a health and fitness role at the University of Vermont Medical Center. So far, she’s been working with teachers and students directly in the classroom, promoting movement and mindfulness.
“After being home for a year or more, [kids are] not getting the same kind of physical activity,” she said.
She has also been leading guided yoga exercises for children focusing on “how to breathe properly and slowly to manage your own emotional state.”
So far, Weyant is loving her new workplace, calling it “a wonderful supportive environment.”
“Everybody is so focused on student development,” she said. “Every facet, every role — everyone is focused on the same goal.”
Greg Sukiennik covers government and politics for Vermont News & Media. Reach him at gsukiennik@benningtonbanner.com.
Greg Sukiennik has worked at all three Vermont News & Media newspapers and was their managing editor from 2017-19. He previously worked for ESPN.com, for the AP in Boston, and at The Berkshire Eagle in Pittsfield, Mass.
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