McAuley gets BlueAngel grant

PROVIDENCE – McAuley Ministries is being awarded a 2015 BlueAngel Community Health Grant for $30,000 from Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island to launch a new “Get Fit McAuley!” program.
McAuley Ministries, an independent nonprofit sponsored by the Sisters of Mercy Northeast Community, provides basic needs such as food, clothing, shelter, health services, emotional support and guidance to the most vulnerable in the community.
The grant is one of six new grants and three transitional grants totaling $319,000. Grant award winners were notified in December 2014 with funding beginning in January 2015.
Through nutrition education, cooking instruction, and greater access to physical activity, Get Fit McAuley! is designed to encourage healthier lifestyles for formerly homeless mothers and their children living in McAuley Village, as well as Head Start youth in the McAuley Village Child Care Learning Center.
Today, eight in 10 preschool-aged children either living at McAuley Village or enrolled in the Village’s childcare program are considered obese.
McAuley Village will collaborate with Rhode Island College to design a fitness program that involves college athletes as inspiration. The collaboration also includes access to athletic facilities for program participants.
Mary Flynn, an associate professor of medicine at Brown University, research dietician at The Miriam Hospital, and creator of the Raising the Bar on Nutrition program and the Healing Foods initiative at McAuley House, will help lead nutrition classes for the program.
“Over the last decade, the Blue Angel Community Health Grant program has become a real force for advancing local efforts to build healthier communities across Rhode Island,” said Michele Lederberg, chief administrative officer and general counsel for BCBSRI. “It’s a privilege to support local non-profits like McAuley Ministries whose hard work is changing the lives of kids and their moms in our community, and to help shine a light on their efforts.”

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