Tapestry Health will mark the end of National Nutrition Month tomorrow (Thursday, March 25) with its 5th annual Community Kids Walk, organized by Tapestry’s Springfield North WIC program.
The event begins with a group of Springfield preschoolers walking down Main Street from Northgate Plaza to City Hall, where they’ll meet Mayor Domenic Sarno. at 10 a.m. Leslie Tarr Laurie, Tapestry’s CEO, and Jim Ireland, director of the program, will speak, followed by a story time for the kids.
The goal, according to an announcement from Tapestry, is to draw attention to new, healthier food choices available from WIC, which provides food to low-income moms and young children. “With the rate of childhood obesity increasing, WIC intends to lower the risk of obesity by offering healthier choices for its participants,” Tapestry says. The event will also highlight the importance of physical exercise.
The WIC program is invaluable in Springfield, where, according to a 2007 report from the U.S. Census Bureau, 45 percent of the city’s residents under the age of 18 live below the poverty line. That figure—double the national rate, and triple the rate in Massachusetts as a whole—earns the city the unhappy position of #6 on the list ranking U.S. cities by their percentage of kids living in poverty.
But the problem of childhood poverty isn’t limited to Springfield, of course. A recent study conducted through a national network of food banks, “Hunger in America 2010,” found that 91,000 people in western Mass. turn to emergency food programs a year, including 32,000 kids and 7,300 seniors.
