Fitness/Stress Relief Rooms
- Friday, January 13th, 2012
South Coast ESD’s “Walk Away Stress Free” wellness program used grant dollars to create a “Stress Relief Room” which is equipped with 2 treadmills, elliptical machine, yoga mats, flat screen T.V., DVD’s, and chair and leg massage machines. Employees have access to the workout room throughout the workday and the wellness coordinators are analyzing usage by having each person sign in before using the equipment.
South Coast ESD’s Workout Area
South Coast ESD’s Leg Massager South Coast ESD’s Chair Massager
Port Orford School District’s wellness grant “Catch the 2CJ Wellness Wave” also used grant dollars to create a workout room that would compare against most gyms. It includes” elliptical machines, treadmill, exercise bike, yoga mats, stability balls, free weights, bench press machine, and a flat screen T.V. Port Orford is a small community on the southern Oregon coast with limited resources to fitness equipment, but by creating a fitness room on-site employees have unlimited access with no gym membership fee. South Coast ESD and Port Orford School District are creating a healthy environment at the worksite and using fitness equipment as a way to sustain the program.
Port Orford Exercise Equipment Room
Tooth Taxi
- Saturday, September 10th, 2011
Blog: September 2011
A new tab has been created on our website and the new tab is “Tooth Taxi”. Created through a unique partnership and the generous support of OEA Choice Trust, The Dental Foundation of Oregon and ODS, the Tooth Taxi is a mobile state of the art dental clinic, which is a 38 foot mobile unit that includes two operatory units. Annually the Tooth Taxi visits approximately 50 sites, serves 3,000 children and provides more than $700,000 in donated dental services. Please click on our new tab www.oeachoice.com/news-events/tooth-taxi and learn more about the Tooth Taxi and the Dental Foundation of Oregon. The following is a quote from a Tooth Taxi host: “The Tooth Taxi staff provide a great service to the kids of our community. They’re great with kids and it’s a safe, welcoming environment. I’m proud to host the Tooth Taxi at my school.” (Principal Mathew Ihle, Chenowith Elementary, North Wasco County SD)
Portion Sizes
- Monday, August 1st, 2011
The website http://kgwlivewell.com/ has a colorful short video on portion size changes over the years. Research shows the people unintentionally overeat and consume more calories when given larger portion sizes. When you look at the chart below see if you’re surprised at how small one serving is, especially the butter and cheese! Click on the link below to take a short portion distortion quiz and test your portion knowledge.
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/obesity/wecan/downloads/portion-quiz.pdf
WELCOA’s “Everybody. Everyday” Program
- Monday, June 6th, 2011
WELCOA’s (Wellness Council of America) website has free resources from surveys and samples, case studies, presentations, health information and incentive campaigns. One of the FREE incentive campaigns is “Everybody. Everyday.” and the campaign is about planning and scheduling physical activity into your day. The exciting thing about this resource, besides being free, is that all the materials are already created for you, which is a huge time saver. The download includes: registration form, coordinator resources, FAQ’s, introductory letter, motivational emails, newsletters, participant packets, and flyers. To learn more about WELCOA go to www.welcoa.org and to go directly to the Incentive Campaigns go to www.welcoa.org/freeresources/index.php?category=22. If you use any of the free resources please provide feedback about how the resources worked at journey@oeachoice.com.
Second Annual Journey to Wellness Meeting
- Thursday, April 7th, 2011
In the News & Events section of our website under Additional Information is the recap of the Second Annual Journey to Wellness Meeting (JTW2) that was held on February 3rd, 2011 at Lane Community College. The meeting was a time for current grantee recipients and potential grant recipients to share stories, tools and challenges and expose them to school employee wellness resources and each other. Thank You for all your hard work and dedication to school employee wellness.
The WISE Spring Newsletter
- Thursday, March 10th, 2011
The WISE (Wellness in School Environments) Spring Newsletter is published featuring articles about Griffin Creek’s wellness program, The Blueprint for Wellness and Fitness Friday. The WISE group is made up of several organizations around Oregon that are passionate about wellness in schools. This brief, colorful newsletter provides current information about nutrition and physical activity opportunities around Oregon and focuses on helping schools, parents and community members implement their School Wellness Policies. Please share this newsletter with principals, teachers, parents and anyone who might be interested. Click on the link below to access the newsletter.
New Stories
- Friday, February 18th, 2011
Go to the Stories section of our website and find out what type of wellness activities school districts have been implementing. Central School District 13J had a friendly bowling competition, Griffin Creek is doing “Lunch and Learn” and Central Point School District 6 is providing various educational opportunities to learn more about health and wellness.
Blueprint for Wellness
- Wednesday, January 12th, 2011
New Resource: Blueprint for Wellness
This resource is intended to be a guide to help implement and sustain your school employee wellness program. The blueprint is based off WELCOA’s Seven Benchmarks of result-oriented workplace wellness programs, and modified to fit school settings. Each step helps you understand what you need to do before, during, and after your grant cycle to build a sustainable wellness program.
The Steps:
1. Obtain Administration and Board Support
2. Establish a Wellness Coordinator and Create a Wellness Team
3. Collecting and Analyzing Data
4. Develop an Operating Plan
5. Choosing and Scheduling Appropriate Wellness Events
6. Creating a Supportive Environment and Using Incentives
7. Evaluate Outcomes
Check out the full Blueprint for Wellness in our resource section of our website.
Tracking Forms and Challenges
- Wednesday, January 12th, 2011
Look for tracking forms and challenges in our resource section of our website that our grantee recipients are using. Tracking forms are an excellent way of providing accountability and competition. Keep the forms simple: easy to understand and easy to fill out. Use incentives throughout the tracking process to motivate participants.
Google docs
- Wednesday, January 12th, 2011
Did you know Google docs is a FREE online tool where you can create and send surveys? The surveys are confidential and you’re able to send the surveys to your participants email. All the submitted surveys get put into a spreadsheet where only the conductor of the survey can see the data to analyze.
To create a survey go to www.docs.google.com and go to New and then click on Form (If you don’t have an account you must sign up first). Then you can create your questions and answers (multiple choice, short answer, check boxes, and others). Once you’ve finished, email the survey out to all your participants.
Go to Google docs and see all the cool things you can create and share. 
