Partners: Spotlight Promotions

National Recreation and Park Association Step Up to Health Initiative

Using a community engagement model, the National Recreation and Park Association (NRPA) hosted 18 summits nationwide between February and May 2005 to train park and recreation departments to be major contributors to healthy lifestyles and livable communities.

More than 860 communities activated as Step Up To Health (SUTH) communities*  and committed to execute activities that include a community festival and public visibility campaign. The trainings featured the VERB campaign as a partner in the SUTH effort and unveiled a media toolkit that the campaign is pilot testing with NRPA. About 94% of all SUTH-activated communities elected to receive the toolkit from VERB.

The toolkit consists of parent-targeted advertising and publicity tools for local park and recreation departments to use to promote their programs and events that encourage physical activity for children and families. In partnership with NRPA, the VERB campaign staff provides technical assistance and consultation to those SUTH communities using the media tools. Communities plan to use the media tools to advertise in local papers, on radio, on Web sites, in parks and recreation brochures, before family movie nights, and more. The NRPA is even using the radio spots from the toolkit on its telephone system while callers are on hold.

Each time the VERB campaign releases a new turn-key promotion kit for use with tweens, the NRPA actively promotes the kit to its members through its electronic newsletter and Web site*. As a result, local NRPA members and affiliates are the largest group of youth-serving organizations that implement these promotional programs on a nation-wide basis.

* Links to non-Federal organizations are provided solely as a service to our users. Links do not constitute an endorsement of any organization by CDC or the Federal Government, and none should be inferred. The CDC is not responsible for the content of the individual organization Web pages found at these links.