Equipment fit for heatlhy students
Teachers at St. Paul's Academy are reconfiguring their after-school lesson plans to include more exercise time for students.
New exercise balls and videotapes that detail various forms of physical exercise will help kick-start the newly expanded PE program. Book of Dreams readers donated the equipment and videotapes to the program.
"It will help us incorporate as part of the after-school program a health portion that talks about exercise and eating right," said Rev. Percius Poku, a minister at St. Paul's Baptist Church who runs the after-school academy.
"One of the things we're trying to do is make sure our children have a healthy lifestyle," Poku said. "We want to make sure they're not sedentary."
The after-school academy is a safe place on 14th Avenue for students to come and eat healthy snacks, work on their homework and talk about character development.
About 30 children participate in the program that runs weekdays and is staffed mainly by volunteers. Now, learning about healthy exercise will be a larger part of that after-school routine.