When New York City shut down in the spring to stop the spread of COVID-19, Jackie Davis-Manigaulte and Wendy Wolfe had to make a tough decision.
Davis-Manigaulte, a senior extension associate and Cornell Cooperative Extension program leader for family and youth development in New York City, and Wolfe, a research associate with the Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program in the Division of Nutritional Sciences, had already spent several months planning a summer educational program for kids. Choose Health: Food, Fun, and Fitness (CHFFF) teaches healthy eating and active play to youth in six, hands-on lessons.
They had partnered with Dana Wheeler, director of education and program development at New York City’s Police Athletic League (PAL), an organization created to help young people grow into productive citizens. Together, they planned to recruit and train teenagers to teach CHFFF in a Cornell program called Choose Health Action Teens (CHAT).