Physical Fitness/Sports Grants

Dear Colleague:

It is our pleasure to invite you to nominate up to two individuals for the 2009 Lewis Hine Awards for Service to Children and Youth. These nationally recognized awards, now in their 24th year, are presented annually by the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC) to ten recipients -- five professionals and five volunteers -- for their unheralded and exceptional service to young people...

We depend on leaders such as you to identify the outstanding work being done in your community on behalf of children and youth. That work can be of almost any kind, from health and welfare to education and recreation.

The deadline for this year’s nominations is Thursday, October 23, 2008. A distinguished national panel of judges will then make the selections, which will be announced early in 2009.

The Lewis Hine Awards seek to identify not the one-time hero, but the individual who has made a commitment to the well-being, growth and development of youth. That commitment may be carried out in a paid job or through volunteering. In either case, the individual’s efforts should symbolize the exceptional work done to improve the lives of young people.

We will bring the awardees to New York City for a media-covered ceremony where their outstanding public service will be recognized and each will receive an award of $1,000.

PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR NOMINATIONS TO:
NCLC 2009 Lewis Hine Awards
Selection Committee
1501 Broadway, Suite 1908
New York, NY 10036

Nominations will NOT be accepted by fax or email.

FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:
Please call 212-840-1801

Active Living Research/Healthy Eating Research Rapid-Response Grants
Deadline:
Open

Program Area:
Childhood Obesity

Purpose:
Active Living Research and Healthy Eating Research are national programs of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) that support research to identify promising policy and environmental strategies for increasing physical activity, promoting healthy eating and preventing obesity.

This call for proposals (CFP) supports time-sensitive, opportunistic studies to evaluate changes in policies or environments with the potential to reach children who are at highest risk for obesity, including African-American, Latino, Native American, Asian American and Pacific Islander children (ages 3 to 18) who live in low-income communities or communities with limited access to affordable healthy foods and/or safe opportunities for physical activity.

Research studies may focus on one or both sides of the energy balance equation—on physical activity (including sedentary behavior), healthy eating or both.

Studies funded under this CFP are expected to advance RWJF’s efforts to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015.

Eligibility & Selection Criteria:
Preference will be given to applicants who may be either public entities or nonprofit organizations that are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
Applicant organizations must be based in the United States or its territories at the time of application.
The timing of the program, event or policy change to be studied must justify the rapid-review process in order to answer the proposed research questions.

Key Dates:
Grants are awarded on a rolling basis; letters of intent may be submitted at any time.
Deadlines for receipt of invited full proposals are August 15 or October 15, 2008.
Grant periods are expected to begin 12-14 weeks after receipt of the full proposal.

Total Award:
Up to $800,000 total will be awarded for rapid-response research grants in 2008.
The maximum amount for a single grant is $150,000 with a maximum funding
period of up to 12 months.

Because childhood obesity is a major threat to the lifelong health of children across the nation, it is important to learn as much as possible about the impact of these initiatives, and to act as quickly as possible to identify the most promising and effective strategies. Results of evaluations can inform policy debates for local, state and national action.

The annual solicitations and funding cycles of Active Living Research and Healthy Eating Research involve a 7- to 9-month period between proposal submission and the start of funding. While those solicitations serve an important purpose, they do not address the need for timely studies on emerging or anticipated changes in policies or environments. This CFP for rapid-response grants is an attempt to address the specific need to support critical research that can only be conducted during a short window of opportunity.

Letters of intent for the rapid-response grants may be submitted at any time, and invited proposals, if awarded, may begin within 12-14 weeks after submission of the full proposal. Research studies may focus on one or both sides of the energy balance equation—on physical activity (including sedentary behavior), healthy eating or both.

Studies that are not urgent and time-sensitive are not eligible to receive grants under this CFP. It is the responsibility of the applicant to clearly demonstrate why the proposed study needs to be funded, conducted and completed on an urgent and time-sensitive basis. Letters of intent and proposals must: 1) define the window of opportunity to conduct the research; 2) explain why the window is limited by time and why the usual award cycle for Active Living Research and Healthy Eating Research would not be suitable; and 3) outline the relevance of the research to a specific policy or environmental change.

Total Awards Available through the Rapid-Response Grant Program
Up to $800,000 in total awards are available for rapid-response grants in 2008. The maximum amount for a single grant is $150,000, with a maximum funding period of 12 months.

Research Topics
Rapid-response grants are not limited to the specific funding priorities for current Active Living Research and Healthy Eating Research CFPs, but must be consistent with the programs' overall goals. The shared goals are to identify and evaluate policy and environmental approaches that have the greatest potential to prevent childhood obesity by increasing children's physical activity, decreasing sedentary behaviors, and improving diet and energy balance. Research projects may focus solely on physical activity (including sedentary behavior), or solely on healthy eating or on a combination.

Types of studies eligible for rapid-response funding are described below. These examples are for illustration purposes only. We rely on the creativity of researchers to generate the best ideas for solution-oriented environmental and policy research.

Opportunistic evaluations of imminent changes in policies or environments (i.e., "natural experiments").

Examples include:

Evaluating the effects of policies that are about to be enacted, such as menu labeling in restaurants; physical activity or nutrition requirements in child-care settings; district or state adoption of school nutrition standards for competitive foods; or new funding to enforce physical education requirements; and
Evaluating the impact of environmental changes, such as a new supermarket opening in a low-income neighborhood where none had existed; changes to public transit options for accessing supermarkets; the introduction of farmers' markets in low-income neighborhoods; renovations of parks or playgrounds; street safety improvements as part of Safe Routes to Schools; or the initiation of community policing to improve the safety of parks and playgrounds.
Studies that can inform an ongoing or upcoming policy debate ( e.g., small experimental studies, secondary data analyses, cost-effectiveness analyses, health impact assessments, simulations of policy effects or macro-level policy analyses).

Examples include:

Studies of menu labeling in restaurants;
Small-scale evaluations of the feasibility of training Head Start staff to lead physical activity;
Studies of how impending school nutrition policies affect youth food- and beverage-purchasing behaviors and the resulting impact on caloric intake;
Small-scale evaluations of strategies to improve implementation of, or adherence to, potentially high-impact policies related to school nutrition or physical education, television restrictions in preschool or day care, or restaurant menu labeling; and
Cost-effectiveness and health impact assessments to inform the policy debate on promising national, state, community or institutional policy or environmental changes designed to promote healthy eating and/or increase physical activity levels among youth and their families (e.g., an increase in federal or state funding for Safe Routes to Schools).
Application Process and Deadlines

How to Apply
All letters of intent must be submitted via e-mail directly to either the Active Living Research or Healthy Eating Research national program office. Letters of intent may be submitted at any time. Studies focused solely on physical activity (including sedentary behavior) should be submitted to the Active Living Research national program office. Studies focused solely on healthy eating should be submitted to the Healthy Eating Research national program office. Studies that relate to physical activity and healthy eating equally may be submitted to either national program office. Click here to download the letter of intent application materials.

Timetable
The Active Living Research and Healthy Eating Research national program offices will make every effort to achieve a rapid turnaround time for each application.

Within two weeks of receipt of the letter of intent, applicants will be notified of review results, and selected applicants will be invited by e-mail or letter to submit a full proposal.
Invited full proposals must be submitted only through the RWJF Grantmaking Online system by one of the following dates: August 15 or October 15, 2008.
It is anticipated that funding for approved studies would begin approximately 12-14 weeks after submission of the full proposal.

Contact:
Chad Spoon, research coordinator (Active Living projects)
cspoon@projects.sdsu.edu
Office: (619) 260-5539

Laura L. Klein, M.P.H., research coordinator (Healthy Eating projects)
healthyeating@umn.edu
Office: (800) 578-8636

Dorothy Harris Endowed Scholarship

History of the Program

The Dorothy Harris Endowed Scholarship was established in honor of Dr. Dorothy Harris, pioneer and advocate for women in sports. Its goal is to assist women graduate students pursuing one of the following fields of study: Physical Education, Sport Management, Sport Psychology or Sport Sociology. As a sports psychologist, Dr. Harris spent many years studying the positive influence of sports participation on athletes. She received the first Fulbright scholarship ever awarded to someone in the field of Sport Psychology, and was the first resident sport psychologist at the United States Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs in 1980. She became known and internationally acclaimed as an advocate for women in sport through her books, articles and presentations around the world. She firmly believed that sports participation was as important and beneficial for females as males, and spent her lifetime fighting for the rights of young girls and women to play sports. Those who knew Dr. Harris spoke of her courage and tenacity, her energy, her ability to be “happy in her own skin,” and her willingness to help others see and accept the truth about themselves. Of the philosophy by which she lived her life, Dr. Harris said that it centered on “...trying to treat others as I would want to be treated. And being comfortable within my own hide...avoiding internal conflict...and having any action consistent therewith.”

Guidelines and Application

What is the purpose of the Dorothy Harris Endowed Scholarship?
To provide female graduate students in Physical Education, Sport Management, Sport Psychology or Sport Sociology with a means to attend graduate school.

Who will administer the program?
Women's Sports Foundation

Who is eligible to apply for the program?
Any female, American citizen or legal resident, graduate student who will be pursuing a full-time course of study at an accredited postgraduate institution during the 2008-2009 school year is eligible to apply for the scholarship. If you will not have tuition expenses in the 2008-2009 school year, you are not eligible for this scholarship. Scholarship checks will be issued in the summer of 2009.

What is the amount of the program?
A total of up to $3,000 in $1,500 individual scholarships.

What are the deadlines and other relevant dates?
December 31, 2008

Total Scholarship Awards
A total of up to $3,000 in $1,500 individual scholarships.