Pinellas Park, FL (November 8, 2021) Girls Inc of Pinellas has received a $10,000 grant from the Florida Blue Foundation to support implementation of the OrganWise Guys curriculum.

Florida Blue Foundation enables healthy communities by making grants, building coalitions, and rewarding best practices. More than three million people in Florida have received direct health services because of grants made to nonprofit organizations since our founding in 2001. Their programs are designed to: impact food security to improve health, development, and well-being; improve health equity to ensure access and opportunity for those disadvantaged by environmental, economic and social circumstances; advance mental well-being to mitigate the stressors associated with issues that can impact families and communities, including loneliness and substance abuse; and address systemic racism and resulting health disparities

The OrganWise Guys program is designed to help Pinellas County girls in grades K-5th learn about nutrition and health in creative ways, allowing them to retain important information to take care of their bodies and reduce obesity and related diseases. This program will help address the health challenges girls in moderate and low socio-economic families face growing up, such as poor nutrition, lack of physical activity and the poor health outcomes associated therewith. Girls Inc. takes an innovative and comprehensive approach to ensuring the social, emotional, mental, cognitive, behavioral, and physical health of all the girls we serve. The OrganWise program will be a tool to focus on the physical and nutritional health of the girls we serve. The overall goal of the program is to create awareness of the impacts of healthy choices on students participating in the program to improve their knowledge, skills, and ability to successfully develop healthy habits related to physical activity, nutrition, general health, and safety.  To learn more about The Ounce of Prevention healthy initiatives programming, visit their website at https://www.ounce.org/find_initiatives.asp

“We are pleased to partner with Florida Blue to support the health and nutrition needs of the girls we serve,” shared Darla Otey, Executive Director of Girls Inc of Pinellas, “we understand that establishing healthy habits at a young age is crucial to long-term healthy outcomes.”