Placentia has partnered with St. Jude Medical Center to create programs targeting obesity in low-income neighborhoods using a $65,000 grant from the hospital.
The money will buy outdoor exercise equipment for Santa Fe Park, giving families that don’t have access to or cannot afford a gym membership a place to work out.
“The hope is that when parents bring their children to play at the park, there will be adult exercise equipment for them,” said Sandra Gonzalez, Placentia’s community services director. The parents, she said, can “engage in a healthy activity while their kids are playing, so everybody gets healthy.”
The grant will also be used to hire consultants to identify and apply for grants to promote physical activity programs and nutrition education. In addition, the money will support health campaigns such as the Healthy Eating Active Living resolution as the city tries to promote active lifestyles.
Over the past two years, St. Jude Hospital has given Placentia more than $211,000 in grants to improve existing outdoor activity spaces and incorporate health and wellness into city initiatives.
Most recently, the hospital funded replastering and new filtration equipment for pools at the Whitten and Gomez community centers. It also paid for exercise equipment at McFadden, Kraemer and Parque De Los Niños parks.
St. Jude Medical Center has reached out to lower-income communities in Placentia that have a disproportionately higher rate of childhood and adult obesity and less access to healthy food and safe places for physical activity, said Tracy Bryars, manager of St. Jude’s Healthy Communities Initiative.
“(Being) overweight and obesity lead to increased risks of chronic disease such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease and hypertension,” she said, “not to mention low self-esteem and depression.”
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