St. Ignace elementary students will soon be offered an afterschool program with a focus on physical activity and nutrition, funded by a $10,000 grant through the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians' Strategic Alliance for Health. It's the first time an after-school program will be offered to all students in two years, although the tribe has offered an after-school program for tribal youth.

The program, organized by St. Ignace Elementary Principal Kari Visnaw, is expected to launch in mid-January and run for 20 weeks. A start date has not been set.

Open to students in kindergarten through sixth grades, it will take place Mondays through Thursdays from 2:45 p.m. to 5 p.m. and will include 20 minutes of nutrition time, 25 minutes of home reading time, and 90 minutes of physical activity. A registration period for parents to sign their children up will be created before the program begins, Mrs. Visnaw said.

Nutrition time will consist of a healthy snack and teaching children why the snack is a healthy choice, and how they can fix such snacks at home.

"It's a lesson intertwined with a healthy snack," Mrs. Visnaw said.

Home reading time, a daily requirement for all elementary students, will allow students to fulfill their reading requirement right at school.

Physical activity time, the longest portion of the program, will include both outdoor and indoor games and activities.

"First and foremost, if we can get outdoors, we'll do that," Mrs. Visnaw said. "There are a lot of days where the weather is not conducive to getting outside, and now that sports seasons have changed, it is next to impossible to find an empty gym in the school."

To provide an alternative to outdoor activities, the school plans to dedicate two of its empty rooms to physical activity rooms. One such room will host traditional games, exercises, and activities, while the other will house a Wii Fit interactive video game system. This video game with five stations and televisions uses motion tracking and accessories to plug exercising students into the game.

Mrs. Visnaw said these physical activity rooms could be used by teachers during regular school days as well as for the after school program, as an added bonus.

"A lot of teachers are trying to get away from using food as an incentive," she said. "Instead, the students could earn a trip to the . . . room."

In hopes of starting similar programs at the school, Mrs. Visnaw and others have started a Coordinated School Health Team, which first met Thursday, December 10.

"The purpose of this team is to positively impact our current Student Wellness Policy," she said, "and, ultimately, improve our school's overall health environment." The team consists of school board members, school staff, parents, and community members.

The team will help guide the after school program, Mrs. Visnaw said, and hopes to find additional funding to support the program after the grant from the tribe expires.

"We ideally have the potential to really positively impact students," she said of the program. "I am very excited about the opportunity to have an after-school activity come back here."

No transportation will be provided to or from the program.

The school is waiting on paperwork and final approval to come back from the Strategic Alliance for Health before it can go forward with the program. If the program can't start in time for the 20- week period to fit in the 2009- 2010 school year, Strategic Alliance for Health has agreed to let the school extend the program into the 2010-2011 school year, Mrs. Visnaw said.

Upon final approval, the school will be seeking a coordinator and an assistant to run the program.

The Strategic Alliance for Health was formed just over a year ago to use and allocate $1.76 million in U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) funds meant to promote healthy communities and encourage healthy lifestyles in the region.