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Healthy Empowered Youth (HEY)
Over the last three years, with the support of Kaiser Permanente, the Youth Leadership Institute Marin has worked with youth teams in two Marin school districts to improve access to healthy foods and physical activity by advocating school and community policy changes. The HEY project is unique in its approach of combining work to transform the community environment (e.g., building school gardens) with support for individuals to make healthy food choices (e.g., awareness campaigns).
This last school year, the Youth Leadership Institute Marin’s Healthy Empowered Youth (HEY) clubs enjoyed another landmark year of promoting healthy living to students at four Marin high schools. Young leaders encouraged positive choices through produce gardens, providing healthy cafeteria alternatives, and promoting physical activity. Novato High’s new salad bar helped the school sell 246 lunches in one day, breaking the school’s record for lunches sold in a single day.