The Foundation is Committed to Sustainability
The Foundation employs a program officer whose work over the years has been focused on GIS, mapping, and providing specialized support to other agencies, who are able to leverage this expertise in order to secure grants. These land use agencies and other nonprofits make use of our staff’s skills and willingness to help in order to increase their capacity to do their own good work.
This has laid the groundwork for our own enhanced commitment to the principles of sustainability, preserving open space, and creating livable communities.
Healthy Students Initiative
Three elementary schools kicked off the 2008 school year taking part in a new initiative that aims to transform the school culture to promote healthy eating and physical activity.
Bella Vista Elementary, Cypress Elementary and Lassen View Elementary have been identified for this effort, which will last seven years and will implement strategies such as hiring full-time physical education teachers, providing a healthy breakfast to all students, enhancing existing school garden efforts, and providing resources to families, enabling them to eat healthier and be more active.
Cypress Elementary is excited about the opportunity to participate in the Healthy Students Initiative. "We are looking forward to enhancing our school environment to help families develop healthy habits in their children," said Cindy Bishop, principal of Cypress Elementary School.
Research shows the academic success of students is strongly linked to their health. Students who are more physically active and consume a nutritionally balanced diet perform better in school. Research also shows that it is easier for individuals to be more active and eat healthfully when their environment encourages such behaviors.
"This first year is primarily about planning. We're excited about working with students, parents and school personnel to begin to plan these changes," said April Jurisich, Program Coordinator.
The Healthy Students Initiative partners include the three elementary schools, Shasta County Public Health, Shasta Family YMCA, and The McConnell Foundation. It is a project of Healthy Shasta, a partnership committed to making healthy eating and physical activity the easy choice. For more information, visit www.healthyshasta.org or call April Jurisich at (530) 245-6843.
Healthy Shasta
Healthy Shasta is a local partnership designed to promote healthy and active living among North State residents. Created in response to serious concerns about the increasing rates of childhood obesity and chronic health problems such as Type II diabetes, Healthy Shasta takes a multifaceted approach to addressing these problems. HS promotes public awareness with media campaigns, events, and outreach to schools. It also links the community to practical resources such as walking trail maps, farmers market schedules, and farm trail maps, found on the HS website.
Partnering with Healthy Shasta and exploring the concepts key to New Urbanism are both intertwined efforts The Foundation has taken toward understanding and addressing the effects of choices that city planners, policymakers, and even funders can have on the health and vitality of the community. Research has shown that traffic congestion and neighborhoods designed to cater primarily to auto traffic can discourage physical activity. With the Healthy Shasta partnership, and by examining New Urbanism, we will continue to ask questions about how we can improve the health and vitality of our local communities.
For more information visit their website at: www.healthyshasta.org.
Swasey Recreation Area Upper Trail Network
This trail is great. I have lived on Lower Springs for 4 years and have witnessed the evolution of the BLM trails. Amazing job, folks! I run, ride my bike, and ride horses out here. This trail system is one reason we will never move from the West side. Thank you!
The Foundation helped construct 3 miles of new trails. These trails link to the existing Bureau of Land Management recreation area, greatly increasing opportunities for hikers, bikers, and equestrian use. A regional plan completed in 1993 set this area aside as an area of critical concern because of the need to conserve and interpret prehistoric and historic archaeological resources. The trails are now carefully routed to avoid deterioration of sensitive habitats, and are not available to motorized vehicles.
Shasta-Trinity Trail Connection Project
The Shasta-Trinity Trail is envisioned as a trail network connecting some of the region’s best destinations – the Sacramento River, Clear Creek, and Shasta, Trinity, and Whiskeytown Lakes. Once in place, the approximately 100-mile trails would be open to hikers, equestrians, and mountain bikers. Rather than a completely new trail built, this would be a regional trail connecting existing local trails already in use. It could link the Sacramento River Trail with the Westside Trail, or the trails of the Horsetown Clear Creek Preserve with those of the Whiskeytown National Recreation Area. A connection between the Sacramento River Trail and the Rail Trail has recently been completed.
This project is assisted by the Rivers and Trails Program, a national program that provides support to local community trails, greenways, river, and open space projects at the invitation of the local community. A coalition of agencies and organizations, including The McConnell Foundation, has come together to implement these plans. Much progress has already been made, and having a master plan in place has enabled organizations to win grants to carry out the vision.
McConnell Foundation to Build Innovative New Arts Campus
The features are terrific. Every aspect of this is purpose-built for an arts school. Any other facility is just a compromise.
By Fall 2010, students from Redding School of the Arts will be housed on a new campus off of Shasta View Drive in Redding that will unite children in grades kindergarten through 8th grade who have been taught in two separate locations for years. Perhaps more importantly, the campus will boast LEED certification, the US Green Building Council’s coveted certification and the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings.
LEED – Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality. What this means for students at RSA is that they will spend their days in classrooms and other learning spaces flooded with natural light and fresh air and an absence of most toxic emissions caused by paint, carpet, and other synthetics found in new buildings.
The project will accommodate approximately 400 students and 60 employees in about 52,000 square feet, in a two-story building that includes classrooms, art rooms, music rooms, a library and information center, and a technology room/piano lab. A key feature of the arts campus will be an outdoor assembly area containing 490 seats and offering enclosed dance and drama rooms that can be opened to create performance venues.
Nicholle Uhleman, who will be in 6th grade this Fall, is excited about the prospect of being in the first class of 8th graders to graduate from the new school. She’s a dance enthusiast and loves doing art projects. One of her favorite features of the new school is the non-traditional classrooms that combine indoor and outdoor learning areas. “We’ll be able to step outside of our classroom and do messy art projects and just hose it down.” Her father, Bob, is equally positive about the new school. “The features are terrific. Every aspect of this is purpose-built for an arts school. Any other facility is just a compromise.”
The groundbreaking ceremony and unveiling of the new RSA sign took place on August 20th, 2008. The McConnell Foundation will build the new facility as a program-related investment and lease it back to RSA. It will be structured as a landlord/tenant relationship with a minimum 20-year lease. The Foundation’s board and staff spent more than a year researching opportunities for sustainable developments, seeking to build a demonstration project on Foundation-owned property. RSA’s need for a new campus and the Foundation’s interest in a sustainably built project came together at just the right time. The Foundation board sees this project as an opportunity to build a LEED Platinum-certified school showcasing building and site elements that enhance learning and complement visual and performing arts education. The school will also strive to meet the Collaborative for High Performance School (CHPS) standards.
With the use permit in hand, the Project Team will work to fast track the project in order to open the doors to the school in the Fall of 2010. Jean Hatch, Co-Director of RSA, who wrote the charter 10 years ago along with Co-Director Margaret Johnson, is looking forward to that day. “It will allow the mission and vision of RSA to be fully achieved.”