Mission Houston Newsletter

Believing in Whole & Healthy Children

March, 2009

A few weeks ago I participated in a Houston Independent School District sponsored event, The Healthy Kids, Healthy Schools Summit. The Summit was an invitation-only event. I was invited because in a course I've been taking I have an assignment to "create" a project that will positively impact the lives of others, and my project was heard about by some in HISD and some researchers in the Texas Medical Center. I proposed to the principal and staff of Shearn Elementary School a 4-8 week health and fitness program that would cost them no money. The goal of the program is reduce childhood and persistent obesity by providing a combination of information and experiences that result in lifelong patterns of health. Through instruction, fun and informative weekly assemblies, contests through the art department and the writing lab around the theme "What does a healthy family look like?," and a walking club where each individual and each class is competing to see who walks the farthest at recess and PE within the school day and whatever they do in after school hours during the weeks of the program. All of this culminates with a Saturday morning health fair for the students, their families and the neighborhood around the school on March 28. We called the project "Camp FREE" - for students and teachers who eat the right Foods, get the right kinds and amount of Rest, and do the right kinds and amount of Exercise ... Everyday!

I chose this project because I wanted to do something that tied into Mission Houston's 10 year commitment to raising a generation of Whole & Healthy Children. I chose Shearn Elementary School because my wife and I are registered volunteers at that school, along with others at Shearn who have been mobilized through the congregations and individuals connected to the Mission Houston CSA team in the Bellaire-SW Loop section of the city. But here's the truth I want you to know: the principal was receptive to my project not because he was convinced about the benefits of my proposal; he welcomed the project and the adjustments it requires of his staff because of the high level of trust he now has in the network of Whole & Healthy Children volunteers from Bellaire-SW Loop who are faithfully mentoring students, who have created and give leadership to a choir within the school, and who carried out one campus improvement makeover project last October and have scheduled another one for early May!

While the stories of impact are different in each of the schools where the Whole & Healthy Children collaborative efforts are underway, the Body of Christ is praying and working together in ways that are changing and enhancing lives, and is creating a welcome and sustainable partnership with the public schools. Thank you for your prayers and financial support, and for those of you who volunteer! Please join us for our annual Luncheon on May 8 where we'll give you an update of what has been happening since last March when we publicly gave our word to the transformation of the public schools, and we will share with you our sense of the way forward for this coming year. You can make your reservations right on our website: www.missionhouston.org. To God be the glory as He is changing greater Houston for good.

For all of us,


Steve Capper