Media Coverage
Reports about local program successes
Through education, communications, grants and programming, Highmark Healthy High 5 is endeavoring to foster a generation of children and adolescents who lead longer, healthier lives.
The articles below are just a sampling of the media that have reported on Highmark Healthy High 5 programs and their successes.
Elco expands phys ed programs
Lebanon Daily News
August 12, 2011
While many school districts nationwide are being forced to cut physical education programs in order to balance their budgets, Elco has managed to expand its phys ed programs. The Elco school board unanimously accepted a $33,706 grant from the Highmark Foundation to improve its physical education program district-wide.
4 Boyertown schools get grants for phys ed programs
Reading Eagle
June 24, 2011
Four Boyertown School District schools have been awarded grants totaling nearly $40,000 for their physical education programs through the Highmark Healthy High 5 School Challenge.
Taking a swing at childhood obesity
Reading Eagle
June 21, 2011
The first pitch on opening day of Olivet Boys & Girls Clubs' summer baseball league was aimed at striking out a heavy hitter known as obesity.
The kids played ball Monday at the city's Lauer's Park Elementary School, but the bigger game plan of the program is to educate youngsters, often from low-income families, about nutrition, while helping to support summertime inner-city baseball in Gordon Hoodak Stadium and promote social interaction between youths and their parents or guardians.
To help do that, Dr. Christina Wilds, 53, senior program officer at the Highmark Foundation Inc., Pittsburgh, presented a check for $65,750 to fund a two-year "Extra Innings" nutrition and education program in conjunction with Olivet's summer league.
Boyertown School District receives four grants for healthy challenge
Boyertown Area Times
June 20, 2011
Colebrookdale Elementary, Earl Elementary, Junior High West, and Boyertown Area Senior High School have been awarded grants through the Highmark Healthy High 5 School Challenge.
Over the past year, 4 of the Boyertown Area School District schools have been awarded grants from the Highmark Healthy High 5 School Challenge grant.
Foundation lauds Riverview's anti-bullying efforts
Valley News Dispatch
June 4, 2011
Riverview Junior-Senior High School has been recognized by the Highmark Foundation for its efforts to establish an anti-bullying program. The foundation presented Riverview officials with a $2,500 award during the annual Safe Schools Conference in Pittsburgh.
USDA presents new guidelines for nutrition on colorful platter
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
June 3, 2011
Social media sites buzzed Thursday as people tweeted, posted and blogged their reactions to the USDA's new MyPlate icon, a simple image of a plate divided into four colorful sections for protein, grain, fruit and vegetable, with a small circle off to the side for dairy.
Almost everyone seemed to agree that it was an improvement on the 2005 MyPyramid, which NYU nutrition professor Marion Nestle succinctly demolished in a recent column for TheAtlantic.com as "a travesty — hopelessly complicated, impossible to teach, and requiring the use of a computer."
(Also see the Highmark Healthy High 5 Plate Planner 
that you can download and print out.)
Plum gets $10K grant to fund fitness program
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review
May 26, 2011
Adlai Stevenson Elementary School has received a $10,000 Highmark Foundation Healthy High 5 School Challenge grant to start a Fitness for Life Program training course.
LifeFit students learn about good food choices
PennLive.com
April 7, 2011
How much do you really know about the food you eat? Can you set long-term goals for food consumption and exercise? Are you sure the snack you ate after lunch was good for you? Thanks to two $5,150 grants from the Highmark Foundation — one for Cedar Cliff High School and one for Red Land High School — Red Land student Brianna Davis knows that a piece of raisin bread, with a little cream cheese, could provide her with a healthy afternoon snack.
Bullying awareness
The Daily American
April 6, 2011
More than 200 schools in Pennsylvania, including some in Somerset County, use the Olweus Bullying Prevention Program. The Highmark Foundation released a report in November that showed that schools that use the program saw a decrease in bullying by 14 percent among elementary students and 25 percent among high school students. The program is designed to improve peer relations and to make schools safer.
$3,500 grant will change gym classes in Mahanoy Area Middle School
Republican Herald
March 31, 2011
Mahanoy Area Middle School physical education teachers Nancy Brylewski and Darren Kline are lighting a SPARK to interest children in exercise. A nationally researched physical activity program, Sports Play and Active Recreation for Kids, has age- and grade-appropriate programs for elementary, middle and high schools. The program promotes fitness-related activities each day for up to an hour. The Highmark Foundation, the charitable arm of the Highmark health care corporation, recently awarded $3,500 to Mahanoy Area Middle School to implement the SPARK program.
Addressing the childhood obesity epidemic among minority children, starting with school lunches – Highmark’s efforts to change the way our children eat
Pittsburgh Urban Media
March 31, 2011
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 2011 National Minority Health campaign is "Bring It or Buy It - Make Lunch Healthy, Green and Good! In Schools, even Food Can Teach Us a Lesson." In response to the national epidemic of childhood obesity, Highmark, along with the U.S. government, recognize the need to address this problem, which affects all children, especially minority children.
Program targets bullying —
Westmont schools participating in plan
Tribune Democrat
March 6, 2011
To build on its existing bullying prevention plan, Westmont Hilltop elementary and middle schools have been selected by Pittsburgh-based Heartwood Institute to be a part of a pilot program that strives to eradicate bullying in schools. A Highmark Healthy High 5 grant totaling $207,505 was presented to the institute, which then in turn selected seven western Pennsylvania schools for the bullying initiative. Grant dollars were used to provide schools with the Teaching Resources for Understanding Ethics Respect Bullying Prevention Kits.