[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 11]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 14955]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        HONORING ARNELL HINKELL

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                            HON. BARBARA LEE

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 12, 2003

  Ms. LEE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a great community leader 
and activist, Ms. Arnell Hinkell. Arnell Hinkell, who is tackling the 
obesity epidemic among teens by supporting efforts in communities 
throughout California to encourage healthy lifestyles, has earned the 
nation's highest honor for community health leadership.
  Hinkell is among the outstanding individuals from across the country 
selected this year to receive a Robert Wood Johnson Community Health 
Leadership Program (CHLP) award.
  Hinkell, executive director of the California Adolescent Nutrition 
and Fitness Program in Berkeley, CA, founded CANFit in 1993 with funds 
from the settlement of a lawsuit charging a breakfast cereal 
manufacturer with deceptive advertising. Her mission is to prevent 
obesity and chronic disease by helping people adopt healthy habits 
while young.
  Drawing on her experience as a nutritionist, chef and organic farmer, 
Hinkell created a program that promotes healthy eating and activity to 
10- to-14-year-olds from low-income, minority families--groups that 
historically have poor diets and suffer disproportionately from health 
problems such as heart disease and diabetes.
  CANFit has provided grants to more than 60 youth organizations, 
scholarships to 90 low-income students studying in health fields, and 
fitness and nutrition training workshops to more than 500 people across 
California.
  What makes CANFit unique is that its work goes far beyond the 
dissemination of information, said Hinkell's nominator.
  Projects CANFit has supported include a Cambodian recipe book, 
nutrition and fitness curriculum for Korean-language schools, a fast 
food survival guidebook, an American Indian surf camp, and a hip hop 
video promoting healthy eating and physical activity.
  From the beginning, Hinkell has emphasized community ownership of 
CANFit projects and insisted that youth be involved in planning and 
evaluating each one. She has grown CANFit from a small endowment that 
many thought would not survive into one of the most innovative and 
uncompromising nutrition education and community capacity-building 
programs in the country, said her nominator.
  Hinkell is working with the Washington, DC-based policy group Forum 
for Youth Investment to make youth nutrition and fitness part of the 
national youth development agenda. She also coordinated development of 
a national model, adopted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the 
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for improving nutrition and 
physical activity for the adolescent poor.
  Community by community, these leaders are showing us the face of 
America's new safety net, said Catherine Dunham, director of the 
Boston-based Robert Wood Johnson Community Health Leadership Program. 
While larger, better endowed institutions must restrict or close 
services under the weight of severe budget cuts, these leaders' 
programs--that provide health services where the need is great--remain 
strong because they are woven from and into the very fabric of the 
community.
  The program awards $1.2 million each year to individuals who have 
overcome significant challenges to expand access to health care and 
social services to underserved members of their communities. Hinkell 
and this year's other winners will be honored at a June 10 event in 
Washington, DC She will receive $105,000 to enhance her program and 
$15,000 as a personal award.
  Hinkell was chosen from among 274 candidates for this year's honor. 
Since 1992, the program has given 110 awards to community leaders in 43 
states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia. This year's award 
winners represent urban and rural areas of California, Kansas, 
Maryland, Massachusetts, New Mexico, Texas and Virginia. They were 
nominated by community leaders, health professionals, government 
officials and others inspired by their work in providing essential 
health services to their communities.
  The Community Health Leadership Program is a program of the 
Princeton, N.J.-based Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the largest 
private philanthropic organization dedicated to improving health and 
health care for Americans.

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