Seattle Children's Hospital
June 2010
For more than 100 years, Seattle Children's Hospital has been an important and active part of our community, leading the way in pediatric care and research.
Sharing a common interest in childhood nutrition, PCC partnered with Seattle Children's in the spring of 2009 and established the Families Helping Families program. Through this annual month-and-a-half-long program, PCC donates five percent of PCC Kid Picks product sales, up to a total of $10,000 to support Seattle Children's nutrition outreach.
"It just makes sense to partner with them," says Sara Walsh, PCC Community Relations Manager. "It creates a good community feeling and also provides info for people regarding healthy foods."
In 2009, Seattle Children's used the $10,000 donation to support its Science Adventure Lab program — a mobile science lab that provides hands-on science experiments and authentic lab experience to students in grades 4 through 8. The lab is one of the newest ways Seattle Children's is educating the community about childhood nutrition.
"Like PCC and the Kid Picks program, the Science Adventure Lab program strives to engage kids in activities that demonstrate the importance of good nutrition to overall health," says Amanda Jones, Ph.D., Director of the Health & Science Education Outreach Program at Seattle Children's.
During the 2009-10 school year, the lab traveled across Washington State, visiting 54 different elementary and middle schools where 6,500 students stepped aboard to learn the science behind key health issues. The lab "addresses the importance of good nutrition and encourages children to make healthy decisions about what foods and drinks to consume," says Jones. For example, students were encouraged to reflect on their own sugar consumption in Seeking the Sugar Solution by learning how much sugar is in an average serving of common beverages.
The money donated in 2010 also will go to the Science Adventure Lab to provide continued support and to enable more students to experience the lab. Jones said the response to the lab has been "overwhelmingly positive" and they're already scheduling visits for the 2010-11 school year.
To learn more about the Science Adventure Lab, visit seattlechildrens.org.