Kaegebein offers heart-healthy event for families

Story and Photos by Alice Gerard

Senior Contributing Writer

“Healthy Heart Night” is an annual event at Kaegebein Elementary School that is about “having the community come together,” said Principal Dave Janicki-Howe. He said the thing that he enjoyed most about the event, which occurred Feb. 6, was “Having all of the parents and all of the kids have fun. I think this is what it’s all about.”

Janicki-Howe, who has been principal at Kaegebein since late October 2024, said, “This is an event that Kaegebein has been doing for years. It’s my first time being a part of it. This is our largest free family event, where all families are invited, as well as community members, to spend the day doing heart-healthy activities. We have heart-healthy snacks. We do different heart-healthy activities like yoga, fitness. We do some blood pressure testing. We talked about healthy foods. The kids got to make a healthy snack. It’s all about heart health because February is heart health month.

“During the day, we all wore red for National Wear Red Day and collected money for the National Heart Association. This is our culminating activity.”

One addition for this year’s version of “Healthy Heart Night” was a schoolwide collection of nonperishable foods for the Grand Island Neighbors Foundation.

“The Neighbors Foundation was excited to have all of the donations,” Janicki-Howe said. “It’s another way to make to make your heart healthy by making your heart happy, by making other people happy.”

Third grade teacher Lynn Ackendorf explained, “This is our first year collecting food for the Neighbors Foundation. The Kaegebein families showed up big with their donations. Early Act Club students will help sort the food. The food drive was run by Kaegebein teachers, with help from volunteers from the high school.”

Third grade teacher Taylor Peacock, who was also helping with the food drive, added, “I like that it’s a free event for all families. We have a really great turnout.”

Diane Garey, a volunteer with the Neighbors Foundation, said, “I think the results were better than anything we could have possibly hoped for. Each of the students brought in many cans, not just one. It makes the kids aware that it could be friends of theirs, that times are tough, prices are incredibly crazy in the supermarkets, and a lot of people are feeling the pinch.”

She added, “It was great for the kids, and the teachers and the staff were just amazing at spreading the word and announcing it every day in their classrooms and raising awareness so the kids remembered to bring in those donations. The school collected hundreds of canned goods, just in that hour-and-a-half event. It raised awareness for the Neighbors Foundation. It made people aware of food insecurities on Grand Island, and it helped the students to be aware and be happy and included in part of the solutions.”

Teacher Angela Gorecki Hamilton and her daughter, Izzy, are excited about helping kids make friendship bracelets.

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Garey said, “I think, too, the teachers came up with a raffle so, for every can they brought in, they got a raffle ticket. Then, they pulled the winners at the end. There was certainly an incentive for them, as well. The teachers on Grand Island do so well to make it a successful event. The (kids) are certainly aware of the situation in wanting to help their fellow students out."

A group of nursing students was checking on heart health by doing blood pressure checks.

“We’re raising awareness and making sure these kids have their blood pressure checked. Just because you’re small and you look healthy doesn't mean you are healthy. We’re putting it out there,” explained Deanna, a fourth semester student in the nursing program.

Emma, another nursing student, said, “What got me into nursing was definitely my grandma. I think just starting nursing school gives you a different outlook on life. You get to see a different side of people that the average person wouldn’t be able to understand. So, I’m really passionate about that. I don’t think working with kids might be my destiny, but I definitely had a very interesting experience when I was here (at Kaegebein) for clinical, so I’m really excited to be back. I actually went to school here myself, so it’s really nice to revisit it.”

Another focus of the event was on keeping children safe. School Resource Officer Troy Livesay was there to register children for the EZ Child ID system, “which provides parents with an ID card, an app that they download on their phones that stores all the information on the app for the parents, as well as a USB with all the information. As the child gets older, they can bring the USB back with them. When we do events in the future, they can update the new information on that.

 “This is to be used in the event of an emergency. Say, if a child goes missing or something like that. It’s a way to have information that (parents) can get to law enforcement very quickly.”

Livesay said having access to this information via the USB “can definitely help because it has all the characteristics of a child, all of their pertinent information: height, weight, contact information, as well as pictures of the child. It helps us to identify children.”

Livesay, who has been a school resource officer on Grand Island for two years and, prior to that, was a school resource officer for the Niagara County Sheriff’s Office, said this program can also be used to help the elderly.

“We also have a function on this that we can do senior medical IDs,” Livesay explained. “Like the senior vulnerable population, say Alzheimer’s, dementia, stuff like that. We can do these for the seniors. It has all of their medical information, contact information, and that type of stuff.”

Other activities included a book sale; activities in the gym; dancing, arts and crafts with Orange Poppy Art Studio; an opportunity to stop, drop and roll with the Grand Island Fire Co.; as well as friendship bracelet making on the stage.

One of the volunteers, stamping passports for kids, was Izzy, daughter of reading teacher Angela Gorecki Hamilton.

Izzy, who is 6 years old, said, “I like the Viking colors. I get to help at Mommy’s school.”

Hamilton added, “Izzy really loves coming to Kaegebein each year for this event. It's definitely something she looks forward to. She loves to see all of my friends at work and give out hugs.

“I love that Kaegebein teachers and community members work so hard each year to provide a night of free family fun. It's so great to see the kids outside of normal school hours participating in all of the stations and having so much fun while doing it. An added bonus this year was the canned food drive for the Neighbors Foundation. Melissa Nesselbeck and Lynn Ackendorf do such an amazing job each year spearheading the meetings and the event. It wouldn't be possible without them and the great committee of teachers and staff members that buy all of the materials, set up each station, and run each station.”

Janicki-Howe said, “I want to thank the teachers of Kaegebein. This is really their program. They are donating their time. They are the heart of this school. That, along with our PTA. It’s a PTA-funded event. With the volunteers through the PTA and fundraising with our book fairs and different sales throughout the year, that’s how we can bring these really good programs to our school. We need to keep having volunteers from our parents and create a really strong PTA organization so we can continue to do these things.”