• Could you use a $1000 mini-grant to help you empower your students to “get active and play” for 60 minutes daily and “fuel up” with nutrient-rich foods?
  
  Join Maryland Action for Healthy Kids and the Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association for one of TWO upcoming webinars that will help you activate the potential of the Fuel Up to Play 60 program in your school.  Even better, by participating in one of these online workshops, your school will be eligible to apply for a $1000 mini-grant to support this program!
  
  Reserve your seat for webinar one on Tuesday, February 23rd at 1:00 p.m. E.T. or webinar two on Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 10 a.m. E.T.  Find out how Fuel Up to Play 60 combines the excitement of the NFL with challenges, prizes and rewards that inspire kids to get active and eat right!  Join Action for Healthy Kids on this webinar to hear about how this new program from the National Dairy Council, the Mid-Atlantic Dairy Association, and the National Football League can help create a healthy and active school in your community.  Learn how your school can qualify for a $1000 mini-grant to help fund student healthy eating and physical activity initiatives.  

  If you are unable to participate, please forward this invitation to another wellness champion in your school such as a parent volunteer, school nurse, PE teacher, or health teacher.  That individual can represent your school and receive the grant application following this webinar.
  
  Be the catalyst for students leading students to healthier eating and increased physical activity with Fuel Up to Play 60!  While you’re online, take a moment to become a member of—or update your membership to—your state Action for Healthy Kids Team so that you can be the first to know about funding opportunities, resources, and news you can use to benefit your school.  Take action for healthy kids today!
  
  Hope you can join us!
  Maryland Action for Healthy Kids

• Active Living Research and Healthy Eating Research 2009 Call for Proposals for Rapid-Response Round 2 Grants
  Application Deadline: Rolling
  
  The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) has posted a call for proposals (CFP) in the Childhood Obesity program area. Active Living Research and Healthy Eating Research are national programs of RWJF that support research to identify promising policy and environmental strategies for increasing physical activity, promoting healthy eating and preventing obesity. The overall aim of both of these programs is to provide key decision- and policy-makers with evidence to guide effective action to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic.
  
  The objective of this CFP is to support 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.
  
  Two types of studies are eligible for rapid-response funding under this CFP:
  1. Opportunistic evaluations of imminent changes in policies or environments (i.e., “natural experiments”).
  2. 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).

Up to $1.675 million total will be awarded for rapid-response research grants, with the majority of funds in this CFP focused on physical activity studies.

The maximum amount for a single grant is $150,000, with a maximum funding period of 12 months.

Visit the Active Living Research or Healthy Eating Research Web sites for more details about this CFP and information on how to apply, at www.activelivingresearch.org or www.healthyeatingresearch.org

• Obesity Prevention and Control Policy Research: Two NIH Funding Opportunities
  Community-Based Partnerships for Childhood Obesity Prevention and Control: Research to Inform Policy (R03)
  (PA-09-140)
  Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
  National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
  National Cancer Institute
  National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
  Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research
  Application Receipt/Submission Date(s): Multiple receipt dates, see announcement.
  http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-09-140.html

  Community-Based Partnerships for Childhood Obesity Prevention and Control: Research to Inform Policy (R21)
  (PA-09-141)
  Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
  National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
  National Cancer Institute
  National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
  Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research
  Application Receipt/Submission Date(s): Multiple receipt dates, see announcement.
  http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-09-141.html

• Grant Opportunity
  The 2008 Farm Bill authorized the creation of the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI), which replaces the National Research Initiative (NRI). AFRI offers research, education, extension project opportunities that focus on six key areas of importance to agriculture, nutrition, food safety, environment, and rural communities.
  
  1. Plant Health and Production and Plant Products
  2. Animal Health and Production and Animal Products
  3. Food Safety, Nutrition, and Health
  4. Renewable Energy, Natural Resources, and Environment
  5. Agriculture Systems and Technology
  6. Agriculture Economics and Rural Communities
  
  CSREES released the AFRI program announcement on the agency’s Web site www.csrees.usda.gov and on Grants.gov.  The program announcement provides an overview of the legislation that created the AFRI program and describes programs being offered in Fiscal Year 2009. The program descriptions contain the program priorities, deadline dates, budget limitations, and contact information. The program announcement does not contain all information needed to submit an application. That information will be contained in the AFRI Request for Applications (RFA). The AFRI RFA is anticipated in January 2009.
  
  Potential applicants are advised to review the entire AFRI program announcement closely to ensure that they understand the full range of programs and grant types available.