ERP Legacy

Students face many demands throughout the school day, and research shows that short, flexible movement opportunities can support focus, behavior, and academic engagement. The Duckery Diamonds were ready to take on this challenge with our Ready, Set, MOVE! physical activity initiative. Program Coordinator, Gianna Edmunds, visited each classroom and conducted movement breaks with students, getting them up out of their seats and active. These quick activities align with SDP's Wellness Policy, which states that students should be active for every 90 minutes of seat time.  Gianna also provided teachers with resources and guidance to encourage teachers to provide consistent movement breaks opportunities throughout the school day.  Teachers were given "Movement Break Jars" which contained popsicle sticks that students could label with their own movement break ideas to use in the classroom.  Whether it's a YouTube video, a local dance trend, or exercises pulled from the Movement break jar, these Diamonds are in motion! This partnership highlights the power of community partnerships and reinforces the impact of integrating wellness into school culture. We are wishing the Duckery Diamonds all the continued success in its efforts of ensuring students are engaged, happy and healthy!

Stephen Girard Elementary School understands that there is a strong connection between gardening and academic outcomes.  Over the years, the school community has worked to develop and maintained a school garden, where students can learn through hands-on, experiential learning. This was not an easy feat.  The gardening space available was severely overgrown and contained litter and debris. School staff, students, and Eat Right Philly worked together to clean the area, remove trash, and restore the garden beds, creating a welcoming space for learning and growing food.  The school counselor, in collaboration with Eat Right Philly, created a garden club for 3rd and 4th grade students, providing opportunities to develop gardening skills, connect with nature, and learn about growing food. Eat Right Philly provided the gardening club with resources such as seeds, small gardening tools and even a compost bin, which helped students understand the growing process and the impact of waste on the environment.  Eat Right Philly’s partnership with Stephen Girard Elementary School extended beyond the garden club and helped strengthen the school’s overall wellness culture by providing classroom nutrition education lessons.  Through these hands-on experiences, students learned where food comes from, how fruits, vegetables, and herbs are grown, and how fresh ingredients can be incorporated into meals at home. These lessons helped build students’ understanding of the connection between gardening, nutrition, and healthy eating habits. 

Through garden club activities, nutrition education, composting, and community partnerships, students gained a deeper appreciation for how food is grown and the role they can play in supporting the overall health and wellness of their school.  The garden club became an important space where students could apply concepts learned in nutrition lessons, practice teamwork, and experience firsthand the journey of food from garden to table. The combined efforts of school staff and Eat Right Philly helped transform both the physical garden and students’ understanding of healthy eating and environmental stewardship.

In 2024, Eat Right Philly collaborated with the Community School Coordinator, Colin Hartzell, at Webster Elementary School to create an after-school cooking club, with an aim to engage students in hands-on cooking sessions that focus on cooking techniques, food safety, basic nutrition and life skills.  Colin worked with school staff to promote the club and recruited 5th grade students to participate in the after-school cooking club with Eat Right Philly support.  In the early stages of the club, Eat Right Philly led the cooking sessions, but as the club gained popularity among students and became more consistent in club meetings, school staff took on more ownership of the club.  Eat Right Philly provided the school club leaders with a kit of cooking materials and continued to support the monthly sessions with recipe ingredients.  In this last year of the Eat Right Philly program, the foundation has been set.  Webster has created a sustainable model for an after-school cooking club that instills students with foundational nutrition knowledge, real-life cooking skills, and a celebration of food that they can take with them as they grow.