Articles in Uncategorized

By Rocky Beach, Executive Director and Founder, Ultimate Impact

Ultimate Impact is a proud partner of San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) and San Francisco Public Health Foundation as a Sugary Drinks Distributor Tax (SDDT) Healthy Schools Grantee. Ultimate Impact uses the sport of Ultimate Frisbee as the framework to provide youth safe and fun spaces for physical, nutritional, and mental health, community-building, and leadership development. Ultimate’s unique combination of self-officiating and mixed-gender play teaches youth to lead with honesty, respect, and inclusivity.  The Soda Tax funding has enabled Ultimate Impact to expand its work to amazing new schools like Malcolm X Academy and Charles Drew Elementary School, while continuing to deepen our work and partnerships with others.

“Ultimate Impact has been a consistent and long-term health and wellness partner at Dr. Martin Luther King Middle School. Besides providing a highly structured alternative sport opportunity, Ultimate Impact supports our transition work due to continuity of programming from our feeder elementary schools. Incoming 6th grade students have a familiar face and activity that they can build upon when advancing through to the next stage of their education journey.”  -Jibraan Lee, Beacon Director, Dr Martin Luther King Middle School

Alongside teaching ultimate frisbee, and preparing our bodies for physical activity, trained and committed coaches also teach players how to resolve disputes collaboratively, take ownership of their actions, and work together to define and accomplish individual and collective goals. By starting with students as early as five years old, and staying with them through the different stages of schooling, our team aims to support healthy values and practices as pillars of their childhood and adolescence.

“Over the years Ultimate Impact has helped me learn about the importance of staying in shape and leading a healthy lifestyle. Their coaches have reinforced the importance of eating well, exercising, avoiding sugary drinks, and drinking more water.” – Paolo, High School Student and Program Participant

In 2023, the Women’s Sports Foundation and Global Sport Matters found that sports participation enhances health, fosters a sense of belonging and community, and supports academic success. Ultimate Impact partners with San Francisco’s top direct service youth organizations to support thousands of youth per year.  Ultimate Impact’s committed and trained coaches empower youth to make healthy decisions both on and off the field.

“Ultimate Impact has taught the importance of staying on top of my health, taught me to eat well and drink more water so that I can stay ready, be healthy, fit, and more energized.”  – Leslie, High School Student and Program Participant

Thank you to San Francisco Public Health Foundation, SFUSD, and Soda Tax Funding for making our community healthier by funding Ultimate Impact’s work!

San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) middle school students competed in the Tasty Routes Art Competition, created by the Student Nutrition Advocacy Crew Kids Club (SNACK Club). Twenty-four students’ artwork depicting local fruits and vegetables will be featured on Muni buses through November. The winners also received $25 to $250 thanks to support from the San Francisco Sugary Drinks Distributor Tax (SDDT).

Click here to read the press release and view the artwork.

By Brie Mazurek, Foodwise

Guest blogger, Brie Mazurek of Foodwise, an SDDT Healthy Communities Support grantee, shares how their teaching kitchen enables free food and nutrition education for kids and adults at the farmers market.

It takes empowered communities to create an equitable and sustainable local food system, which is why education has always been at the heart of our work at Foodwise. While we’re known for running San Francisco’s famed Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, it’s in our teaching kitchen at the Ferry Building where our community gathers to share and nourish food culture and wisdom, roll up our sleeves, and make something delicious together.

Tucked under the arches of the Ferry Building behind larger-than-life photomurals of farmers and food justice leaders, the Foodwise Kitchen is a hub of activity for youth and adults alike: Kids taste fruits and veggies from our local farmers, guided by the Foodwise staff. High school students in our Foodwise Teens program collaborate to make a farm-fresh lunch and enjoy it together. Local chefs and volunteers prep ingredients for our free public cooking demos, showcasing what’s in season at the market.

Since 2012, Foodwise has offered Foodwise Kids for free to San Francisco Unified School District elementary school classes (grades 1 through 5), serving more than 2,500 kids and adults each year. Every Tuesday and Thursday, we welcome kids to explore the farmers market, meet local farmers, and prepare healthy, seasonal foods in our kitchen alongside their classmates. 

Using market coins we provide, kids choose what to buy in the farmers market, empowering their agency to make healthy food choices. Studies show that kids often need to taste new foods 6 to 15 times before they start to build new eating preferences and habits. Foodwise Kids offers joyful opportunities to taste, learn, and share food in community, which is core to engaging young people in healthy eating.

Foodwise Kids prioritizes higher need classes, where over 80% of students qualify for free and reduced price lunch, as well as schools that have higher percentages of BIPOC students, groups who statistically have less access to fresh, local produce. “Foodwise has provided my students with invaluable experiences that teach about food production and farming, wise food purchases, nutritious eating, and cooking lessons that embrace healthy eating,” says first-grade teacher Hazel Mak.

For high school students, we offer Foodwise Teens, a paid youth development program where teens become change agents for a sustainable, equitable, and nourishing food future. Through hands-on experiences in the kitchen, in their school gardens, and at the farmers market, students learn about food justice, develop important life and job skills, and build community together.

Students graduate from the program reporting increased self-confidence and deepened awareness of the food system and their agency within it. Foodwise Teens participant Lucia shared, “I’ve really used the things I’ve learned with Foodwise and taken it home with me to help my mom and my sister cook at home.”

For adults, on Saturdays at the Ferry Plaza Farmers Market, our free cooking demos at the Foodwise Classroom tent provide a gathering place for market visitors to share food traditions and seasonal, accessible recipes, always with free samples to taste. Our demos reflect the diversity of our food community, with 60% of our demos led by BIPOC chefs, food makers, and farmers. 

None of this free food and nutrition education can happen without the infrastructure of a robust working kitchen and the support of our community. With funding from the 2024 SDDT Healthy Communities Support Grant, we were able to purchase and install a much-needed double oven and dishwasher and refrigerator along with durable items like chairs, tables, AV equipment, and other kitchen supplies.

These investments allow us to have a functional and organized teaching kitchen to ensure that programming runs smoothly for our team and participants. We are now able to think more ambitiously about increasing the frequency of educational events in our space, which will allow more students and community members to participate. 

Farmers markets are spaces where neighbors can learn and share food culture, put our values into action, and build community together; the kitchen brings those lessons home. We’re grateful for the support of the SDDT Healthy Communities Support Grant, as we work to support and empower all San Franciscans of all ages to take part in a fair, regenerative, and delicious food future for all. Learn more about Foodwise’s programs and join us at an upcoming event.

By Laura Urban, Associate Director of Health & Nutrition at Children’s Council of San Francisco

Children spend upwards of 40 hours per week in childcare, giving child care educators a unique opportunity to shape healthy behaviors at a young age. That’s why at Children’s Council of San Francisco, we offer health and nutrition programming that fosters child care environments that support good nutrition and ample opportunities for physical activity. This work is essential to our ultimate goal of mitigating diet-sensitive chronic diseases as children transition into adulthood. We do this work in collaboration with our network of child care educators, offering Policy, Systems, and Environmental (PSE) programming to ensure child care providers have the tools and supports to create healthy childcare environments, inclusive of limiting access to sugary drinks.

Our programming strives to serve all our communities in San Francisco. Specifically, we prioritize supporting child care sites and early educators who serve primarily low-income, Black, Latinx, Pacific Islander and Asian families with young children ages 0 to 5. We work to eliminate health disparities among these priority populations through the integration of three core programs: Healthy Apple Program (HAP), the Child and Adult Care Food Program (CACFP), and our Farm to Early Care and Education (F2ECE) Program.

Our HAP is a PSE initiative that supports early educators in limiting children’s access to sugary drinks and increasing the frequency of serving fresh fruits and vegetables, the availability of safe drinking water, and the amount of adult-led physical activity provided to children each day. Today, our HAP annually serves approximately 250 child care providers, reaching upwards of 3,250 children.

The CACFP is a federal nutrition program that offers partial reimbursement for the service of healthy meals and snacks, incentivizing educators to abide by nutrition guidelines to ensure that children get the proper nutrition they need. Children’s Council is currently a sponsor of about 240 Family Child Care Homes (FCCHs), supporting nutrition security for nearly 1,849 children.

Our F2ECE Program enhances nutrition security by increasing children’s access to healthy, organic produce and supporting local food systems. We partner with Yeyi Organics to source CSA boxes from BIPOC-owned, organic farms using regenerative practices. These boxes are provided to CACFP FCCHs for meals, snacks, nutrition education, and to share with families. In Summer 2024, we are working with 20 CACFP FCCHs to deliver an anticipated 3,696 pounds of produce, reaching about 201 children and their families.

To support our child care educators in our programs, we provide regular onsite coaching and individualized assistance. We understand that transportation barriers can affect our educator’s access to our trainings and resources. Although our Mission Dolores office is accessible by public transit, the time and effort required can be challenging. Accessing our Health and Nutrition programs, including workshops and CSA box pickups, can be difficult for providers balancing various needs in San Francisco.

With these constraints in mind, in November 2023, we applied for the Sugary Drinks Distributor Tax (SDDT) Healthy Communities Support Grant offered through the San Francisco Department of Public Health Foundation in partnership with the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH). We proposed the purchase of an electric vehicle (EV) and the purchase and installation of a four-bank EV charging station on-site at our offices. The EV would be used to travel to our CACFP monitoring visits, to offer onsite HA coaching and technical assistance, and distribute materials to child care providers engaged in our programming, in addition to transportation related to workshops and/or other educational opportunities offered by our Health and Nutrition staff.

In January 2024, we were excited to announce we were one of the awardees of the San Francisco Department of Public Health Foundation’s SDDT Healthy Communities Support Grant. Shortly after, Children’s Council purchased a 2023 Hyundai Kona EV and installed the four-bank EV charging station. The Kona and the charging station will result in significant transportation expense savings every year, allowing for the reallocations of savings to fund and support other Health and Nutrition program direct-service activities to promote chronic disease prevention.

Without this funding, Children’s Council would not be able to expand our capacity to reduce inequities that affect underserved children and their families within San Francisco. Our Health and Nutrition Team is excited and proud of our new set of wheels! Keep an eye out for us in your neighborhoods. Much gratitude to the stewardship of these funds by the Healthy Eating/Active Living Chronic Disease Prevention Programs department of the San Francisco Department of Public Health Foundation for supporting our expansion of capacity to do this important work.

Photo Caption: Children’s Council’s Patricia Ortiz, Health and Nutrition Specialist, shows off their new EV.

By Jenny Griffin, Storyteller – America SCORES Bay Area

On May 17th and 18th, America SCORES Bay Area hosted their first ever wellness fairs, bringing together service providers and community organizations to provide health resources to their community of poet-athletes and their families. The wellness fairs were made possible with funds through the 2024 SDDT Healthy Communities Support Grants.

Floods of energized San Francisco kids, fresh off the soccer fields from a season-ending “Game Day”, streamed into the America SCORES health fair tents at the Crocker Amazon Soccer Fields and Civic Center Plaza on a bright windy May weekend in San Francisco. By the end of the events, SCORES had distributed nearly 2,000 lbs of fruits and vegetables, free water bottles, crates of healthy snacks, coloring books, and colored pencils. Kaiser Permanente staff encouraged healthy eating and engagement through fun physical activities; an on-site physician offered blood pressure and blood sugar checks; and the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank provided information about their services and CalFresh enrollment. Meanwhile, participants happily hula hooped, played soccer tennis and spike ball, competed in jumping jack competitions, and even did yoga. And soaring above it all was a giant inflatable “Canzilla” (which looked a whole lot like a Coke can), embellished with the word “Diabetes” in Coke’s familiar script, alerting attendees of both the hazards of too much sugar and the source of funding for the Wellness Fairs – the San Francisco Sugary Drinks Distributor Tax (SF Soda Tax).

America SCORES Bay Area is an out-of-school-time program that supports whole child development through the teamwork of soccer, the creativity of poetry, and the compassion of service-learning. SCORES serves students at 113 locations spread from San Rafael to Watsonville. In San Francisco, SCORES operates at 30 locations, primarily serving students at under resourced schools. Many SCORES’ participants, or poet-athletes, live in neighborhoods with limited access to healthy food and recreational spaces, including the Tenderloin, Visitacion Valley, and Bayview-Hunters Point in San Francisco. 

SCORES operates year-round soccer teams, typically based at the students’ schools. Participation in these teams fosters a strong sense of belonging, providing ample time for physical activity and social engagement. Soccer practices are designed to be comprehensive experiences that integrate nutrition education, skill development drills, fair play principles, and teamwork exercises. Weekend “Game Days” allow the teams to come together for friendly competition. During the fall season, SCORES teams engage in writing workshops to foster creative self-expression and enhance literacy skills. SCORES poet-athletes develop their unique voices, share personal stories and experiences, create original poems, and gain confidence through the powerful medium of poetry. In the spring, they become agents of change in their communities, conducting research and identifying a challenge they address through team-based community service projects. 

America SCORES organized the Health Eating Active Living (HEAL) Community Wellness Fairs to promote health and wellness among low-income youth and their families and to help reduce health disparities through access to services and education. Funds from the San Francisco Sugary Drinks Distributor Tax (SF Soda Tax), a 1-cent-per-ounce fee on the initial distribution of drinks with added sugar, enabled SCORES and multiple other organizations to host HEAL events. 

Ida Kutechko, SCORES Director of Institutional Giving, says SCORES and HEAL made for a natural fit. “We have the experience providing healthy lifestyle programming through soccer and our weaving of nutrition into conversations about what it means to be healthy. This grant allowed us to expand on that and leverage our reach to provide additional resources to our community.

“We deliberately took a holistic approach in designing the event, including physical activities, healthy snacks, and health resources, and we’re emphasizing how incorporating multiple small changes can lead to better physical health. We’re connecting with other community organizations, like Kaiser and the San Francisco-Marin Food Bank, to bring resources to our poet-athletes and their families. Parents and caregivers, siblings, extended family, and even the people you see daily are essential to maintaining the health and wellbeing of kids.” 

Andres Marin, MD, a family medicine doctor, SCORES parent, and a SCORES board member helped out at the Civic Center and Crocker Amazon wellness fairs. “The event captured the essence of community engagement and the importance of promoting health and wellness,” he said, adding that the screenings prompted some serious conversations about health and lifestyle modifications among both SCORES kids and their families. “I’ve always felt it’s important for kids to see the adults in their lives think about and put energy into their own health and wellness and to model healthy habits.”

Neelesh Kenia, MD, Chief of Outpatient Pediatrics at Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco and a SCORES board member, joined Marin at the Crocker Amazon fair. “It was an amazing way to connect with the SCORES community,” he enthused. “I loved watching the kids talk with our clinical educators as they learned about healthy lifestyles in a fun, interactive way. They loved telling us about their favorite healthy foods but were shocked to learn how much sugar was in many of their favorite drinks,” he said.

“Beyond the screenings, just being at the event was really fun,” concluded Marin. “On both days my kid was off running around playing soccer, the atmosphere was fun and festive, and I got to connect with a lot of happy kids and families.”

Image Credit: America SCORES Bay Area. Poet-athletes visit the Kaiser Permanente health education tent at the wellness fair.