Focus on wellness
The Healthy After-School Snacks committee is working with the school district to improve the latter’s wellness policy. The basic guidelines for snacks would be changed to reflect the allowable amount of fat, sugar and salt by weight, which is more intelligible than the current guidelines, according to Laurie Mozian, chair of the Healthy After-School Snacks committee and project coordinator for Community Heart Health Coalition of Ulster County, another HKK partner.
Among other things, the new guidelines exclude nuts and seeds from the weight restrictions on fat (given the healthfulness of both types of food), suggest a three-tiered guide to healthy snacks, and would require all juice beverages sold to children twelve and under be 100 percent juice, eliminating corn-syrup additives.
The committee’s advisory work in the schools has been limited to snacks sold in the two vending machines in the fieldhouse at Kingston High School — hardly the basis for system-wide change, it would seem, given that 40 percent of the items don’t comply with the current school wellness policy. Mozian noted HKK was investigating the food choices in the surrounding neighborhood, where most teens do their snacking after school. Participants in BOCES’ New Visions program, some of whom are Kingston High School students, went out one recent afternoon on a healthy-foods scavenging hunt. The idea was to have students ask retailers in the area to serve healthier foods.
“Right now the choices in the retail environment aren’t healthy,” noted Mozian. At least one eatery located on Broadway near the high school does serve freshly prepared dishes from wholesome ingredients. “The prices are above what kids can afford,” she said, an answer that seemed to sum up one of the obstacles in getting kids to eat better.
Food deserts, walking buses
An offshoot of the gardening committee, the Healthy Foods Task Force has been mapping out Kingston’s “food deserts” — poverty-stricken pockets of the city lacking markets where fresh produce and quality food is sold — with the aim of planting a community garden in one of those areas. Funding would be available from the Creating Healthy Places to Live grant program, administered through the Cornell Cooperative Extension, which is developing an outreach plan to drum up residents’ interest. Noble said the garden, whose exact location is yet to be determined, would be designed to impact four to ten families. CCE master garden coordinator Dona Crawford is involved in the project.
Safe Routes to Schools and Parks has been the impetus for several “walking buses” that enable elementary-school children to exercise by walking to school rather than taking the bus. Steve Noble, the city’s other environmental educator and a committee member, said that George Washington School started a “walking bus” — kids walk to school in a group accompanied by a parent or the principal — for Wednesdays, which has since been expanded to include Fridays, too. “We have high hopes this spring to expand that to other schools,” he said. Committee members are meeting with PTAs and PTOs as well as with school administrators.
The committee is also mapping safe routes to two schools, Bailey and Edson, and will follow with a plan for George Washington and Sophie Finn, Noble said — a project that involves compiling a list of non-motorized improvements along the routes, such as repainting of a crosswalk. He said federal funding has been available in the past through the National Safe Routes for School grant, although that the future of that funding source is a question mark, as the program is tied up in a stalled transportation bill in Congress.
Walking these streets
HKK was a force in the formation of the city’s Complete Streets Advisory Council in 2010, which is working with the city on policy changes and capital improvements to improve the streetscape for pedestrians and bicyclists, including better lines of sight for children, safer crossings, traffic calming, and aesthetic improvements. Committee chair David Gilmour, a New Paltz-based planner involved in the project, said the complete-streets panel is contributing to the city’s new comprehensive plan.
“Kingston has a great street grid, but it’s lost some of its walkability,” Gilmour said. “Take a look at an aerial photograph of the areas around Schwenk Drive and in Midtown. There’s a tremendous amount of space used for surface parking that is inhospitable to pedestrians. The sidewalks in these areas could be easily improved.” Given that a quarter of Kingston residents don’t own a car, safer, more attractive sidewalks and streets would improve the quality of life for adults as well as kids.
Gilmour noted that the city’s past investment in bluestone — despite the cracking sidewalks in some areas — was a good one, given that the stone has lasted upwards of 75 years. “Adding bike racks at the cost of $250 each is a miniscule investment” in the general scheme of things, he said.
The complete streets committee has been advising the city on half a dozen capital projects. Applications for state and federal funds are planned for two, both aimed to improve pedestrian and bicyclist safety. The proposed “boulevard” runs from Greenkill Avenue along Route 32 south from Washington Avenue, a stretch of busy road from both an automotive and a pedestrian perspective. A sidewalk is currently lacking. The other application is for remodeling the intersection of Albany Avenue, Broadway and Colonel Chandler Drive. A roundabout is being considered.
Gilmour said the committee has worked with the city’s engineering department, and plans to develop relations with the public works department as well.
There’s much room for improvement when it comes to making the city more walkable for kids. In devising safe routes to Bailey and Edson schools, Gilmour said, the lack of a sidewalk along the main thoroughfare leading to the schools was a big obstacle.
Wilson said finding funding and mustering up the will to effect change was an on-going challenge. As a member for more than two years of the school district’s Health and Wellness Committee, she has found that volunteers come and go. “They get tired of the bureaucracy and give up,” she said. “What I’ve noticed it has to do with having a strategy…Meanwhile, people can’t even agree on the goal. It takes a lot to pull people together to get them on the same track.”
