Healthy Lifestyles: Integrating the Healthy Lifestyles Program into the CDF Freedom Schools Program

The Healthy Lifestyles project was undertaken at the Bennettsville, South Carolina, site for the Children’s Defense Fund’s Freedom Schools program. Bennettsville is the hometown of the program’s founder, Marian Wright Edelman. Ms. Edelman is a prominent civil rights activist who is also an advocate for children’s rights. She founded the Children’s Defense Fund to work in this capacity. The Freedom Schools program is meant to provide a summer enrichment opportunity for children in underserved communities. The program seeks to meet five essential components: high quality academic enrichment, parent and family involvement, civic engagement and social action, intergenerational leadership development, and nutrition, health and mental health. The Healthy Lifestyles project was created to address this fifth component of nutrition, health, and mental health improvement. In the summer of 2012, three students named Emily O’Loane, Chanell Crawford, and Ashley Brigham, who were all participating in the DukeEngage Bennettsville program, developed this project in response to a lack of knowledge of nutrition and health issues seen while working as servant leader interns at the Bennettsville Freedom Schools site, which was held in Marlboro County High School.

Bennettsville is located in Marlboro County, South Carolina, which is located 15 miles across the North Carolina border. According to data found in 2013, 8,008 individuals and 3,937 families received food stamps in Marlboro County. Within the Bennettsville Freedom School site, every child was eligible for free and reduced lunch, which is a federally mandated and regulated program. According to a report done in 2010, approximately 56 percent of Marlboro County residents are obese, as compared to 30.3 percent in South Carolina and 27.7 percent in the United States. Within the Marlboro County school system, there is a low-income preschool obesity rate of 13.8 percent, as compared to the 11.4 percent in South Carolina and 14 percent in the United States. In South Carolina, 62.4 percent of adults are not meeting the national physical activity recommendation. The data specifically for Marlboro County regarding physical activity has not been found.