Photo Friday: Never underestimate a mom, a dad, a teacher, a principal

Christine Gillard-Arthur, Prince George’s County Physicial Education Teacher, and student from Gladys Noon Spellman Elementary, interviewed by Danielle Cass. Part of Everybody Walk week, Kaiser Permanente, Washington, DC View on Flickr.com

I’ve been trying to understand the role of the mobile app, gamification, and the “attack-vector dashboard” (listen to Adam Curry’s rundown of the latest buzzwords) to improve health. And yet, I saw so many people this week who are “willing to give anything, whatever they have” to help their communities be healthy. In the photograph above, Danielle Cass (@DanielleCass) is interviewing Christine Gillard-Arthur, who brings physical education to her kids in Prince George’s County, so that they can be healthy for life.

I heard the story of the mom who understood how hard weekends are on kids when they don’t have access to food, and created food bags that they could take home on Friday, on her own. The program was eventually expanded upon by the Capitol Food Bank. Then there was the mom who insisted that her city council person walk to school with her, and almost got hit by a car. (See “The Long Scary Walk Home” video shot from a child’s perspective)

It was totally unexpected for me that the greatest impact of Everybody Walk Week didn’t come from the doctors, nurses, and researchers studying the science of community health improvement (although they were the catalysts)… it was the teachers and principals at the Iverson Mall (“Teachers follow Teachers”) and Prince George’s County, the dedicated moms and dads at schools, the parents at St. Baldricks (@StBaldricks @46mommas) Shave for the Brave (also this week), who all have an unbelievable (let’s say untouchable) ability to change the world around them. We need to understand and integrate this as part of the health system.

The Power Rangers were just icing on the cake, photos below, enjoy.