The Rutgers Culture of Health School Program (RCHSP), which was established with a $100,000 grant from the The Horizon Foundation for New Jersey, completed its 2023-2024 program this May. A community outreach initiative under the New Jersey Institute for Food, Nutrition, and Health, RCHSP fosters and promotes lifestyles centered around physical activity and nutritional literacy and is a joint endeavor of the New Jersey Healthy Kids Initiative (NJHKI) and the Department of Family and Community Health Sciences (FCHS), a unit of Rutgers Cooperative Extension (RCE).
Dr. Erin Comollo, Program Development Administrator for NJHKI, and Jennifer Shukaitis, MPH, Family and Community Health Sciences Educator, served as co-principal investigators of the 2023-24 grant.
Horizon Foundation previously awarded a $100,000 grant to support a NJHKI collaboration with IFNH’s Center for Health and Human Performance (now the Center for Exercise and Metabolism) to host field trip experiences for local school students to learn about fun ways to stay physically active. The success of the initial project led to annual Horizon Foundation grants that enabled a nutrition education component, facilitated by FCHS, to be added and the program to be implemented on-site at partner school locations.
RCHSP educates children and adolescents about the importance of making informed food choices and providing them with resources to develop healthy eating and physical activity habits. To support these goals, RCHSP staff developed six Physical Activity and six Nutrition lesson plans that were developmentally appropriate for each cohort of grades K-2, grades 3-5, and grades 6-8, all aligned with New Jersey Health and Physical Education Core Content Standards.
RCHSP staff members and Rutgers student volunteers visited partner schools weekly to teach lessons during gym classes and model program implementation for the participating classroom teachers. From January through May, this year’s program reached over 1,170 K-8th grade students across 7 NJ schools: Kindergarten students at Lafayette-Pershing School in Carney’s Point, Kindergarten through 5th grade students at Franklin elementary schools Conerly Road School and MacAfee Road School, K-4th graders at Parsons Elementary School in North Brunswick, 4th, 5th, and 6th graders at Greater Brunswick Charter School in New Brunswick, 6th graders at John Adam’s Middle School in Edison, and 4th and 7th grade students at Westampton Middle School in Westampton.
Gerald Tenebruso, Vice Principal at Westampton Middle School and former Edison PE teacher applauded the program’s ability to impact his students’ wellness literacy.
“We are so grateful to Rutgers and the fitness and nutrition classes they brought to our school. The Rutgers staff and students were amazing with our students. Each week our students really looked forward to the nutrition classes as this is something they otherwise would not have been exposed to doing during their normal school year. The lessons were engaging and kid-friendly, making the excitement of the students grow from week to week. I know our students are going to miss this program and all the cooking and snack tasting.”
