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| Live the Challenge Ends With Most Successful Run Yet 
South Kern Sol, News Report, Alfredo Camacho Building Healthy Communities South Kern (BHC-SK) celebrated the end of its annual Live the Challenge with its biggest and most successful Live the Challenge event to date. Over 300 runners from the South Kern area gathered at Lamont Park on Saturday, April 25 to participate in the 5k or 10k color runs, a turnout that surprised event organizers. "Our first year we had about 150 people, last year, with that winter storm, we ended up with about 100 people, but this is more than double," said Jennifer Wood-Slayton, hub manager for BHC-SK. "We got 500 shirts but we organized for 300 people, and that was a generous estimate." Wood-Slayton attributes the success to incentives like goodie bags, plus a strong focus on social media campaigns and facilitating easier online pledge-making. In addition, incorporating the recent fad of hybridizing running events with the Hindi spring festival of Holi to make "color runs" helped build anticipation for the event. Because of the excitement, BHC had trouble recruiting volunteers for the event as most wanted to run. "It was Angel's [Munoz, hub coordinator] idea, she presented [the idea for the color run] to the committee as a possibility and everyone went crazy for it," said Wood-Slayton. "We even had trouble getting volunteers for it since they all wanted to run, they asked, 'we'll volunteer but can we still run?'" Read more here. |
Vecinos Unidos Urge Parents to Get Involved with New School Funding Formula
This past Saturday, Vecinos Unidos hosted a community meeting at the Arvin Veterans Hall to urge parents to get more involved with the Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF), the new way schools are being funded. LCFF aims to give local school districts and parents more control over how money is spent.
"Right now, most of our parents are not involved, but that's why we organized this meeting," said Timoteo Prado, community organizer for the Dolores Huerta Foundation.
One parent who is involved is Virginia Melchor, a 42-year-old mother of three.
"Many parents are not aware that our schools are receiving this money, and the schools are not yet helping our students. The classrooms are still crowded, and I would like to see more tutoring for the students that are behind," said Melchor.
Vecinos Unidos is a community project of the Dolores Huerta Foundation and holds neighborhood-level meetings several times during the year.
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Judge Lets KHSD Discrimination Suit Move Forward
South Kern Sol, Reyna Olaguez On Monday, Kern County Superior Court Judge Eric Bradshaw ruled that a discrimination suit filed by Latino and African American students against the Kern High School District (KHSD) can move forward. The ruling was announced by California Legal Rural Assistance (CRLA), which is part of a larger coalition of rights groups that initially filed the suit. "The goal of this lawsuit is to correct the school district's current discipline practices, to eliminate the disproportionate suspensions of students of color, to foster a safe environment with effective discipline responses, and to ensure the rights of students to a quality education," read a press release put out by the group. Read more here.
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| What Keeps Me Up at Night? 
South Kern Sol, Youth Commentary, Luis I'm a 17-year-old undocumented teenager living in Arvin. I am going to tell you what keeps me from closing my eyes and falling asleep at night. Some nights before I fall asleep I think to myself about how my life will be in the future. This is what I picture: I graduate high school, start working in the fields for a while to save enough money for welding school and for daily necessities like food and gas. During this time I pay rent and other bills to my parents. Once in welding school it will take three months to get certified. What got me interested in becoming a welder? Some of my family members are welders, and they all bought their houses and brand new cars within five to six years. What I like about that job is that you can play around with metal and make your own projects on your free time. What I'm really not going to like about being a welder is that there will be times where you have to go out of town to work for more than a week. The worst is that you will be leaving your family and probably will miss one of your kid's birthdays. After I get certified, I'm going to look for a job as soon as possible with one of my friends. I will look for a job that pays more than what's enough to live on. When I have enough money, I'll set out to save money again to buy my own house and buy a new car. Then I start to think, why can't I be what I really want to be... Read more here. |
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About Us
Building Healthy Communities is a comprehensive community initiative that is creating a revolution in the way Californians think about and support health in their communities. Residents are proving that they can make health happen in their neighborhoods, schools and with prevention-and in doing so, they are creating a brighter future for their children.
Over 2,000 residents, youth, businesses and organizations are leading the BHC-SK effort to positively change the health of our communities through a shared vision, goals and action plan. Residents in Arvin, Lamont, Weedpatch, and the unincorporated areas of Greenfield are proving that we have the power to make health happen in our communities.
BHC-SK is promoting healthy change in the areas of:
- Education: Improving education from pre-K through adult education
- Environment: Creating a healthy environment with clean air and water
- Health Access: Increasing access to a better health care system
- Recreation: Improving recreational activities, facilities and parks
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We have the power to build healthy communities for the next generation.
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Our Website Has Been Updated!
We are happy to announce that our website can now be translated into Spanish. Take a look around and make sure to check out our updated
calendar
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