Foundation awards grant to CMU to educate about cardiovascular health
The Mount Pleasant Area Community Foundation gave $2,000 to Central Michigan University for future events educating local kids and parents about cardiovascular health .
The foundation is providing CMU with the money to fund a cardiovascular health intervention program which will screen the cardiovascular risk factors of all Isabella County fifth graders, said Dr. William Saltarelli, the CMU professor in charge of the program.
“(CMU) applied here through the community foundations and asked for funds to put on the program,” said Amanda Schafer, executive director of the foundation.
This is the third year this program will be held in Isabella County.
“This program is to educate and screen kids for cardiovascular disease risk factors” Saltarelli said. "The risk factors being blood pressure, cholesterol, obesity and others.”
Once students have their cholesterol, glucose, height, and weight tested, the information is put into a document and sent to the parents.
“We’re educating the parents and the kids about cardiovascular disease, which begins really early,” Saltarelli said. “We always think of cardiovascular disease as a stroke or heart attack in people that are 50 or 60."
Overall, Saltarell hopes to teach the students about healthy lifestyles to help decrease those risk factors.
The two best ways to do this is to be physically active and have good nutrition, he said.
The program will be held this fall in Finch Fieldhouse and dates are still being coordinated.
Saltarelli said they have to do roughly 11 different dates to get all the kids in Isabella County screened. There are 580 kids in the county and each day the program tests between 60-70 kids.
Schafer said the foundation has previously supported the program, which was formed in 1998. The grant was given to the foundation through the Kellogg Youth Fund.
“The Kellogg Youth Fund is unique because the recommendations for the grant making comes from our youth advisory committee,” Schafer said.
Local youth reviewed the grant request and decided to recommend the funding to the cardiovascular program. The board of trustees at the foundation later approved it.
