Improving Quality of Life
Nursing program brings fun, fitness and fellowship to Boykin Center
By Katie Garfinkle
Tucked away one mile from the busy surroundings of Auburn University sits a small building that long ago served as a school for the Boykin community. The Boykin Community Center, now home to daycare and senior citizen programs, is the site of a new venture sponsored by Auburn University’s School of Nursing designed to promote better health to a group of women in the community.
Dr. Robin Pattillo, director of the Boykin Fitness program, is using this pilot program to prevent health problems such as heart disease, diabetes and high blood pressure. Auburn’s University Outreach funded the program as a branch of the Tiger Fitness Program from the Department of Health and Human Performance.
The Boykin Fitness program was created to increase physical activity and incorporate exercise as a part of everyday life for women with barriers keeping them from local gyms, Pattillo said.
Educating Tomorrows Leaders Today
By Callie Curry
Tony Cook sat in the front of a large auditorium that was dimly lit from the warm Huntsville sun. He proudly watched children from all around Alabama partake in a trial workshop he had been planning for months. Cook was pleased to see his hard work being embraced with such excitement and wonder.
The children sat lined up beside one another, ages 9 to 14, at long wooden tables, waiting patiently and wide-eyed. They were surrounded with large grey kits that were filled with mysterious objects and materials that made noises as loud as a freight train passing by.
Volunteers passed out booklets and told the children to carefully read instructions that were given to them and then let their imagination, creativity and skills take them the rest of the way. Some of the children had never had an opportunity such as the one provided by Alabama’s 4-H that day.
The mission: to build their own working robot, rocket and a lunar machine for a make-believe space trip.
By Katherine Leigh Thornton
It’s the Christmas season in Uniontown, Ala., and the anticipation of this magical day is hard to bear for Dr. Crista Slaton. As she followed members of the Uniontown Cares group into the newly renovated antebellum plantation she knew this Christmas party symbolized the rehabilitation of a town plagued with poverty.
This is the first time any of the African-American members of the community had ever visited this home, built by a slave labor. This holiday party, in 2003, marked the first time residents of Uniontown, both black and white, came to really know each other and confront issues of common concern.
What brought them together was a program supported by the Auburn University Economic Development Institute. Since 1999, Auburn’s outreach in Uniontown, Al., a small community in Alabama’s Black Belt region has, successes, failures and limitations.
Teaching Fathers How To Be Just That
By Kylee Patrick
A total of 28,338 inmates were in Alabama prisons in March of 2007, according to the latest report. That is more than equal to half the amount of people living in the city limits of Auburn.
Many of the men and women sent to jail will eventually be released. Life after jail can be tough. It’s hard to find jobs, be accepted by society and face other dilemmas people who haven’t been there cannot begin to imagine. Instead of leaving men who have been released from these prison to fend for themselves, a program called the National Fatherhood Initiative is helping them make a better life.
Sharon Gilbert, a Regional Extension Agent who serves eight different counties for the Alabama Cooperative Extensive System at Auburn University, works closely with the National Fatherhood Initiative.
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Last updated May 03, 2007May 03, 2007May 03, 2007May 03, 2007