Organized by Friends of Way Park, the event will offer activities for kids from preschool to middle school.

Several local organizations are participating. St. Olaf’s Science Alliance will offer green energy demonstrations and hands-on experiments.

Northfield YMCA is organizing fun games like kite and pinwheel making, letter boxing, a scavenger hunt and mini-green houses.

Families can also check out playground equipment options for a future Way Park playground upgrade.

Friends of Way Park is a non-profit organization that works together on issues related to the restoration and care of Way Park

as published in the Northfield News:  http://www.southernminn.com/northfield_news/announcements/article_774a3e70-1c19-5235-9d40-c782c413dd15.html

What is a CSA?  It’s a way to receive fresh vegetables all summer long from local growers.

The SEEDS farm CSA comes with a little extra.  For more details, read the full description at http://northfieldymca.org/seeds-farm

http://northfield.patch.com/announcements/four-northfield-area-residents-join-northfield-area-family-ymca-board-of-directors

St. Olaf Professional and Business Writing Collaboration
January – May 2013
Professor Becca Richards
The primary purpose for this collaboration is to help you develop materials that further your organization’s mission while giving students the opportunity to experience the changing workplace environment through the process of creating written documents. I anticipate that client-based projects will teach students about electronic media, oral and written communication, and collaboration in diverse workplace environments. Finally, I want to encourage students to team with community leaders, such as you, to create usable documents for the workplace. In sum, both you and the students should benefit directly from this collaboration, and my role is to ensure that your interests are balanced with those of the students.
Teams of students will work on the Northfield Y’s website pages – primarily the Home page and Program pages looking for improvements in writing, appeal and technology.  Recommendations will be provided by May.

Wonderful collaboration and partnership.  The Colleges in town are a gold mine of talent and the Northfield Y is very excited to work together to provide hands-on experience and results that benefit the mission of the Y.  For more information, questions or comments, please email Virginia Kaczmarek at Virginia @northfieldymca.org.

At the YMCA, our programs incorporate our Core Values of Honesty, Caring, Respect and Responsibility. We work hard to support healthy lifestyles by reaching out and engaging families and individuals who seek well-being and who are looking for ways to sustain a healthier lifestyle. Join our YMCA team and help us provide quality, safe and healthy programs and services in our community.

Current Positions Available

• Lead Youth Sports staff
• Lead Preschool Instructor
• Lead Child Watch (Child Care) position
• Preschool Instructors
• Health & Wellness Fitness Center Staff – updated 8/22/12
• Child Care – Working Child Watch Positions – updated 8/22/12
• Y Youth Development (Coaches and Instructors) positions – updated 8/22/12
• Group Fitness Instructors – always interested in instructors, ongoing
• Business Manager (8-12 hrs/mo)

Submit an application to 519 Division Street (National Guard Armory), Northfield, MN 55057 or to virginia@northfieldymca.org. Application available below or on our website under “About Us” and “Jobs”.

Employment Application (updated 10/11/11) (Microsoft Word)

Employment Application (updated 10/11/11) (PDF Style)

Studies have shown that an average ten year old spends eight hours in front of a screen per day. While technology and other factors draw children indoors, conscious effort towards opening the door and stepping out is critical.

Physical outdoor activity and connecting with nature are important to good health, well-being and a child’s intellectual capacity. Research shows that participation in outdoor activities in parks, backyards, gardens, and forests can increase self-esteem, decrease symptoms associated with ADHD, contribute to emotional growth and combat childhood obesity.

Author, Richard Louv, coined the term ‘Nature Deficit Disorder’ not for medical diagnosis but because it is clear and understandable. Consider for a moment the simple comparison of a child sitting on the couch with a gaming device in hand… not a lot of physical movement other than the child’s thumbs manipulating the controller; all mental focus on an artificial electronic figure battling or racing. Now consider a child walking down a park trail moving legs, arms, body with the mind focusing on trees, flowers, water, mushrooms, moss, and rocks.

One of the most rewarding experiences for the YMCA staff in Northfield is taking children into nature. Which includes: long hikes where children who may be bordering on obesity find success and pride in physical activity. During unstructured play near water children use their imaginations and you sometimes see them creating rock homes filled with water for fish they imagined they caught themselves.

Imagination is not used in video games and technology. Imagination plays a key role in problem-solving for children as they learn and grow and thrive. Time spent outdoors is magical and does wonders for children who need hands-on experiences. Children who would typically get into trouble indoors play successfully with other kids outdoors and become friendlier.

Suggestive of the ‘No Child Left Behind Act’, our government is processing a vital initiative entitled, ‘Leave No Child Inside’ because countless studies have shown that children need nature. The initiative abides by the Children’s Outdoor Bill of Rights, which declares that every child should have the opportunity to: discover wilderness – prairies, dunes, forests, savannas, and wetlands, camp under the stars, follow a trail, catch and release fish, frogs, and insects, climb a tree, explore nature in neighborhoods and cities, celebrate heritage, plant a flower, play in the mud or a stream, and learn to swim.

Remembering back to childhood experiences in the outdoors, do you see a difference in the way children today are encountering nature? Children used to travel up to a mile away from home to engage in spontaneous play while today kids travel only an average of 500 feet. Our community is blessed with access to the outdoors in and around Northfield. Putting down the “screens” isn’t easy, but the Y encourages you to sit down ~today~ and make a list with your child or your grandchild of places you can both go to explore nature and then make it happen!

The Northfield Area Family YMCA has just mailed out 1500 Summer Camp 2012 brochures to families in the community with children under the age of 11. If you have not receive your Y camp brochure please call 507.645.0088 – and we will mail one out to you or you can see the brochure online here: http://northfieldymca.org/wp-content/uploads/YMCA-SummerCamp-2012.pdf

 FOR

 NORTHFIELD PATCH’S PERSON OF THE YEAR (2011)

http://northfield.patch.com/articles/poll-vote-for-northfield-s-patch-s-person-of-the-year

Craig Swenson, Northfield YMCA’s Wellness Lead and Group Exercise Instructor was nominated for Northfield Patch’s Person of the Year.  This distinction recognizes those that have done some good in Northfield.  Over the last few weeks Northfieldpatch.com had readers submit names of people they feel deserve this honor. Northfield Patch received 10 nominations, which you’ll find in the attached poll and Craig Swenson was one of the 10 nominated. 

September is National Childhood Obesity Awareness Month, and the Northfield Area Family YMCA is reminding parents about the importance of incorporating regular physical activity and healthier eating habits into their children’s lives.   Read more

HealthFinders July 7 2011 newsletter

I’ve been in Northfield going on four years, and an ongoing question I’ve heard repeatedly surrounds whether we truly are good at partnering.

Definitely, there’s a lot of talk about partnering, collaborating and sharing resources, and there are good examples of exactly that. I wonder that if we were graded as a community, though, would we get an “A”?

Northfield is rich in nonprofits and businesses and government entities and groups. How well do we truly work together to meet community needs? Is the general feeling one of “let’s dig in and get this done together?”

The YMCA has been a part of my life for a long time and I’ve worked in a variety of communities over the years. I have spent most my adult life as a single parent, though my children are now grown and I’m a grandma. I also spent time in the military and put myself through school (my background is in economics). My personal experience has put me on both sides of community need (receiving and providing). I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly, forgive the quote. At my core, I’m a collaborator. It simply doesn’t make sense to work in a silo. But instead, I continually look for ways to share resources and talents, reduce duplication, ensure programs are affordable and available and work together whenever possible. It just makes good economic sense.

It sounds like a simple recipe. But those of you in the trenches — working to support the kids, adults and families and all those in our community with needs — know it’s not always that easy. But shouldn’t it be? I spent a little time looking through the Rice County Health Rankings (2010), the City’s Community Survey (March 11), the 2010 Minnesota Student Survey (Northfield’s student information), the Center for Disease Control’s website and some slides I got from a friend surrounding “The Synergistic Effects of Obesity and Cardiovascular Disease.”

We have some work to do. Granted, there are some amazing things happening in Northfield. I only need to look at all the good work the Healthy Community Initiative is doing and I’m wildly impressed. I’m sure there are pockets of wonderful things happening all over Northfield. But, that doesn’t change the statistics in these reports and it doesn’t change the question that has been persistent for me: “Are we good at partnering?”

What can we do together to tackle a few of the excerpts from these reports:
• Rice County’s diabetes rates are higher than the state average.
• We have less access — that includes access, location and affordability for all ages — than the state average to fitness and recreation facilities. We are 70 percent lower than the national average.
• One-third of us are obese (a term I detest), and two-thirds of us are overweight.
• Only 22 percent of us have access to healthy food.
• Thirty-four to 48 percent of our sixth-graders (23 to 34 percent of 12th graders) do not participate in school sports teams, 29 to 33 percent of our sixth-graders (35 to 51 percent of 12th graders) do not participate in club or community sports teams.
• Forty-eight to 51 percent of these sixth-graders (59 to 73 percent of 12th graders) indicate the reason they don’t participate in school-based or community-based activities is because they are “too busy with other things.”

I find these sorts of statistics interesting when the Center for Disease Control indicates kids are spending an average of 6-10 hours per day in “screen time” (TV, videos, games, Internet, etc.). Add the number of families we have with one parent active military overseas and that 23 percent of us are single parents and 10 percent of our kids live in the poverty level, we have some further partnering to do.

All this data points to challenging problems that will require even greater partnership and coordination. The Northfield YMCA already partners with more than 30 programs and organizations. Collaboration is a key element of our organizational DNA, The Y’s and our partners’ combined volunteers and program participants will continue to be a catalyst for increasing the ways in which we work together, making Northfield a better, healthier place.

— Virginia Kaczmarek is executive director of the Northfield Area Family YMCA.