Road of Life: Cancer Prevention for Kids

Testimonials

“Road of Life is a unique and exciting organization. ROL takes the idea of cancer prevention a few steps further and tries to establish good lifestyle choices and habits with children, long before they are potentially faced with a cancer diagnosis. I believe in ROL because of their unique ability to pull resources from different sources, such as the medical community, the public health community, and the education community.”

– Sharon E. Kim, Clinical Research Coordinator at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center

“Road of Life improves the health knowledge of all students that are involved in the program. We even featured their work in the College’s Annual Report Magazine.”

– Lori Bolton, Assistant Director for the Practice Education and Career Services in The Ohio State University College of Public Health

“All the lessons in the After School Program were easy to use and integrate into our current programs. The kids loved learning lessons while enjoying the activities; the facilitators loved the user-friendly content. After using Road of Life’s programs, the children experienced an increase in knowledge through education, a change in attitude through awareness and exposure, and a change in behavior through action and performance.”

– Lisa Palmer, Executive Director for the Olde Southside Community Partnership

“I was speechless when I came across the Road of Life website. I am thrilled that the lessons are available to our school for free. The lessons are extremely interactive, encouraging all students to participate. They also cross several subject areas, not just health.”

– Agatha Kusenda, Guidance Counselor at Brainerd Baptist School in Chattanooga, TN

“Road of Life’s innovative programs have a very important role to play in keeping some of America’s most at-risk communities healthy.”

– Laurel Shoaff-Tranick, Program Manager for the Corporation for National and Community Service

“By providing this information to children, we are teaching them that they are not only responsible for their personal health but in the future they can choose to be responsible for helping others become healthier. The sheer diversity of each curriculum demonstrates ROL’s ability to solve the main problem of chronic illness.”

– Denisha E. Garland, MPH, SIT with the Cincinnati Health Department

“In the past, I have always had a difficult time incorporating a health curriculum into the classroom. With so many standards to meet in the core subjects like Math, Reading, and Writing, Health curriculums often get pushed to the side. However, the Road of Life health curriculum has changed that in my classroom.”

– Kimberly Frank, 4^th grade teacher at Tanque Verde Elementary School in Tucson, AZ

“Road of Life focuses on educating children on fitness, nutrition, and overall good decision making that will lead to healthier lives and greatly reduce the risk of developing cancer later in life. We recognize the work that ROL is doing and we want to help ROL create an Adolescent and Young Adult specific program to expand ROL’s program to this age group. We look forward to working with ROL..."

– John J. Letterio, M.D., Chief of the Division of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital

“I believe the ROL program is a worthy effort that will make a positive difference in the lives of children.”

– Karen L. Gilliam, Ph.D. Manager of the Office of Diversity at The MetroHealth System

“We support Road of Life because of its great work against a dreadful disease. We believe that ROL will impact the knowledge of health for children everywhere.”

– Jack Staph, Executive Director of the Cleveland Marathon, Half Marathon & 10K

“We are confident that the Road of Life Program will help improve the knowledge and build awareness of health for children in Cleveland.”

– Eileen Korey, Vice President of Communications at The MetroHealth System

“This program is easy for our teachers to integrate the curricula in their classrooms. Due to the fact that the classroom curriculum is aligned to National Health Standards as well as State Academic Standards, teachers do not have to veer away from teaching the required core academic subjects of math, English language arts, social studies, and science.”

– Mary G. Maul, Principal of Scranton K-8 School in the Cleveland Metropolitan School District in OH

“I am a very strong advocate of the Road of Life: Cancer Prevention for Kids program and the innovative work they have done with Columbus Public Schools.”

– Andrew Ginther, Columbus City Council (Former Columbus Public School Board Member)

For the Media

Road of Life: Cancer Prevention for Kids

Program News

Written by Press Release

Monday, 03 September 2007 00:00

Road of Life: Cancer Prevention for Kids is a 501 (c) 3 for-impact organization with a mission to eradicate preventable cancers and diseases of excess (such as childhood obesity and Type II diabetes) by educating children about the smoking, fitness, and nutrition decisions they can make to lead healthier lives. Road of Life is the first and largest non-profit organization in the United States exclusively dedicated to this issue. This newsletter is designed to inform and update educators about the programs and resources that Road of Life offers.

In 2002, upon learning that there was very little work being done in the field of cancer prevention for children, Rob Emrich founded the Keren Emrich Foundation in memory of his sister who passed away from cancer at a young age. Rob sold his car and stocks to fund the organization and enlisted the help of his high school and college friend Matt Youngner, to serve as the organization’s first Executive Director. The foundation eventually led to Road of Life: Cancer Prevention for Kids.

In only six years, Road of Life’s comprehensive cancer prevention program has significantly influenced children in Ohio as well as being distributed to ten other states nationwide. The organization went from serving 100 kids to over 19,500 kids in a span of one year.

The programs were piloted in the Columbus Public Schools in 2003 using mentors from The Ohio State University. In 2005, Road of Life partnered with mentoring organization City Year Columbus to deliver its health lessons during City Year’s after school programs. The results were as follows: students were 26% more likely to know that smoking makes it more difficult to excel at exercise and sports and 40% more likely to report eating fruits and vegetables each day.

All the programs offered at Road of Life are FREE for download from our website at www.roadoflife.org. Currently, all the programs focus on elementary grades 3-5 with a classroom curriculum, after school program, and summer camp program. The classroom curriculum aligns to the National Health Education Standards and State of Ohio Academic Content Standards. The newest addition to Road of Life is the Family Program. This program provides parents, family members, and care givers an opportunity to incorporate healthy activities that they can participate in with their children to promote healthy living within the home environment.

Our programs change Knowledge through education, change Attitude through awareness and exposure, and change Behavior through action and performance.

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