August 2005
www.pe4life.org



New Strategic Plan Will Shape Our Future

The entire PE4life staff has been engaged this summer in a planning exercise that will have far-reaching effects upon the organization. Earlier this year, key executives from the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation (GKCCF), one of the nation's premiere community foundations, joined us at a strategic planning retreat.

The GKCCF's Jan Kreamer and Dalene Bradford guided us through a powerful strategic planning process. The timing was perfect. PE4life recently turned five years old. Over those five years, we've enjoyed some tremendous successes and positively impacted thousands of young lives. Nevertheless, we've reached a level of maturity where we need to take a long look at our direction for the next five years and determine how we can reach the most children, teachers, parents, health care professionals, and other physical education advocates.

We have defined new goals, strategies and tactics in several areas, perhaps most importantly, in the area of education and training. We currently have three PE4life Institutes: our first Institute in Naperville, Illinois and two others in Grundy Center, Iowa and Titusville, Pennsylvania. I'm excited to let you know that we will soon announce three additional PE4life Institutes, and we will continue to expand with 5 or more new Institute sites each year until we have one PE4life Institute in each of our 50 states by 2010. Our projections show approximately 11,000 school districts with active PE4life Programs by that date. That means PE4life will have positively impacted as many as 34 million students.

To make this vision a reality, we'll need your help. If you haven't already joined PE4life, please sign up today. Together, we can unleash a physical education health and fitness movement throughout our nation's schools. Our children and our nation will be much the better for it!


Anne Flannery,
President & CEO



PE4life Summits Planned for Kansas City, MO and Rogers, AR

PE4life will host two PE4life Summits during the upcoming fall semester. The Kansas City Missouri School District, together with the PE4life National Office, will host the first summit on Friday, October 7 at Lincoln College Preparatory Academy in Kansas City. The second Summit will be held Saturday, October 29 at Kirksey Middle School in Rogers, Arkansas. Both will feature PE4life Institute speakers as well as other educators and health care professionals who are making a telling difference in children's overall health and fitness. Summits are a great opportunity to network with other physical education advocates, form new community partnerships and share strategies for combating the physical inactivity crisis now plaguing our youth. Plan to attend now!



Training Dates Coming Soon

PE4life is finalizing PE4life Institute training dates for the coming school year. When ready, these dates will be posted on our website so groups can begin planning. Watch for a special e-blast when those dates are announced.



States Ranked By Children's Fitness

Child.Com has published an interesting article that ranks states according to the fitness of their children. In compiling their rankings, the site studied mandated school fitness and nutrition policies, along with more than a dozen other factors. Check the full story and see how your state measures up at http://www.child.com/kids/health_nutrition/fittest_states.jsp

No matter how your state fared, we want to remind you that the PE4life Institutes are great places to train community teams and get ideas on how to improve your local physical education programs. Or, if you want to begin building a group of community advocates, you can request a copy of our new Community Action Kit from Human Kinetics. It includes a great video on the importance of quality, daily PE in a child's development.



This month we are proud to spotlight The Sports Authority. On August 4, 2003, The Sports Authority, Inc. and Gart Sports Company, both founding sponsors of PE4life, completed a merger that created the nation's preeminent full-line sporting goods chain. The combined company, now known as The Sports Authority, Inc., is headquartered in Englewood, Colorado and operates approximately 385 stores in 45 U.S. states under The Sports Authority®, Gart Sports®, Sportmart® and Oshman's® names. In addition, The Sports Authority operates e-tailing websites, located at thesportsauthority.com, gartsports.com, sportmart.com and oshmans.com . A joint venture with AEON Co., Ltd. also operates  "The Sports Authority" stores in Japan under a licensing agreement. We are proud of our relationship with The Sports Authority and thank them for their sponsorship.

http://www.thesportsauthority.com/
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