Congratulations to Meeting Waters. – Lil

One of the smallest Ys in the country, at least in terms of budget, is once again serving as a model for their nearly 2,700 peers around the country. Meeting Waters YMCA leaders were recently notified by YMCA of the USA, the national resource center for all Ys in America, they are one of ten Ys in the country chosen as “HEPA Champions.” HEPA stands for healthy eating and physical activity. The HEPA standards are a set of policies and practices developed by the National Institute on Out of School Time and embraced by the YMCA movement. Recently, Y-USA commissioned an independent audit of local Ys adherence to 17 dimensions of policies and practices related to healthy eating and physical activity. Meeting Waters YMCA scored high in all 17 areas.

According to Meeting Waters YMCA’s Executive Director, Steve Fortier, Y-USA will highlight our regional Y and nine others as “bright spots” of what is possible. “Our policies, practices, parent engagement processes, communication tools, daily snack and physical activity plans, staff recruitment and training practices, parent handbook and more will be made available to all Ys in the US,” Fortier explains. “Sue (Meeting Waters YMCA’s Program Director Susan Fortier) will be available as a coach and support for Ys wanting to raise their level of commitment to ensuring children in Y day care and school-age care programs are surrounded with unambiguous and uncompromised environments, messages and experiences in support of healthy lifestyles.

“With over 9 million young people in the Y’s care every day across the country, if all Ys commit to achieving these standards, we can have an even greater impact on the health of young people in America,” Fortier adds. “We’re proud of what we’re doing with a couple hundred children in our area and how we can positively impact millions more through our modeling and coaching as ‘HEPA Champions.’”

Examples of some of the standards include serving water as the beverage of choice and never serving drinks with added sugars; serving snacks with food from two or more food groups, at least one of which is ½ cup of a fruit or vegetable and serving snack family-style; and engaging the parents of Y-ASPIRE children in monthly skill-building and information-sharing experiences to support them in having a healthy home environment. A full set of the standards are available on the Y-ASPIRE page at www.meetingwatersymca.org.

According to Program Director Susan Fortier, Meeting Waters YMCA has been committed to much of what became part of the HEPA standards for more than a decade before the standards came into existence.  “When Steve and I created the Y-ASPIRE outcome objectives, overarching policies and curriculum framework back in 1998, we had a strong commitment to healthy eating and physical activity baked right into what Y-ASPIRE is all about,” she said. “We know that children can only be healthy in ‘spirit, mind and body’ when they get the proper amount of physical activity and their bodies and minds are fueled with healthy foods. The obesity epidemic has only compounded the importance of all of this in more recent years.”

Executive Director Steve Fortier is quick to point out that local support has made it possible for his organization to make the financial investments required to purchase healthier snacks. “We spend more than $15,000 per year on food for our seven Y-ASPIRE sites,” he explained. “Thanks to a grant from the Fanny Holt Ames and Edna Louise Holt Fund and donations to our Community Support Campaign we’ve been able to ensure that each and every day, the snacks and drinks we serve are 100% compliant with the very stringent HEPA standards and, of course, our own high expectations of ourselves.”

In 2011, Meeting Waters YMCA’s Healthy Communities Coalition of Windham County was chosen by YMCA of the USA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) as one of four “national success stories” in healthy communities efforts aimed at “making the healthy choice the easy choice where people live, work, learn and play.”

Meeting Waters YMCA was founded 120 years ago. It is a charitable, social service organization serving over two dozen communities in the Bellows Falls, Fall Mountain, Springfield and Brattleboro regions. Its Y-ASPIRE programs take place at Brattleboro’s Oak Grove, Green Street and Academy schools, as well as Dummerston School, Putney Central School, Rockingham Central School (also serving children from Westminster Center School and Saxtons River School) and all three Walpole schools from a site at Walpole Primary School. More information about Y-ASPIRE, its HEPA standards and other Y services is available at www.meetingwatersymca.org or by calling them at 802-463-4769 (BF and Fall Mountain area), 802-246-1036 (Brattleboro area) or 802-885-8131 (Springfield area).

Photo:  Y-ASPIRE participants often make their snacks from scratch. Here, Anthony from Y-ASPIRE at Rockingham Central School does his part of a group effort to make homemade apple sauce.