's motd Monday July 7, 2008

[Guest guest]

I'M TESTIFYING IN CONGRESS!

Monday, 07 July 2008

Two years ago, a dear friend of mine sat down with me and asked what I wanted my legacy to be. As I thought about her question, I reflected on my past. As I thought, it became clear to me what I wanted that legacy of mine to be.

My mission, my legacy would be to get America's children more physically active and fit so they would not grow up obese, as I did.My mission began with putting together a team from Slimmons and we all decided we needed to gather some facts about the state of fitness of America's children. To get those facts, we devised a questionnaire that would be filled out by the parents of those kids and by all those adults who truly cared about the health of America's school children.Anne, Dana, Kathy, Janet and Heidi were all part of the Slimmons teams who helped write my questionnaire. Once it was ready, next, I had to spread the word about our mission and that's when my press tour began.

My first stop was to visit with Neil Cavuto on the Fox News Channel and begin spreading the news about our questionnaire. I also spread the word on the Today Show, Letterman and the Ellen Degeneres Show. As a result of that press and so much more, thousands and thousands of questionnaire responses began coming in!And in the majority of those responses, we discovered that a lot of schools no longer offered PE as part of their core curriculums. We couldn't believe it!Five years ago, the No Child Left Behind Act was created by President Bush. It's purpose was to make sure that all of our public school students got a well-rounded education. But the emphasis was placed on academics. The greatest need was focused on reading and math subjects, all in an effort to get the students test scores higher.But to accomplish that goal, several other subjects were removed from school curriculums. And two of the things that were removed were recess and Physical Education...good-old PE! Once all of the questionnaires came back in, good news! I was contacted by Congressman Zach Wamp of Tennessee who informed me that he was ready to help with our crusade. And as many of you know, I went to Washington, DC where I met with several other Congressman to seek their help as well.

After that visit to our nation's capitol, I began another press tour. My purpose, this time, was to get as many as possible of our supporters, like you, to write their own Congressman and to also write Chairperson , Chairman of the House Education & Labor Committee, soliciting his support on this very important issue. Thanks to so many of you, members of Congress received hundreds of thousands of Emails. In them, you talked about my crusade and about how much we needed PE reintroduced as a part of our school's curriculums.

Well, lo and behold! I just received a phone call and guess what? All of my team's hard work has paid off! On July 24th, at 10AM, I will be part of a full Congressional hearing about our children, their health and my vision to create a program that will bring a dedicated program of physical activity back into the schools...for every child who has been left behind!

So can you believe it? Me...in front of Congress! And I'm not going to speak just from my heart. But I'll be speaking from your hearts too. I will stand there, tall and proud as I deliver my message. I wanted to share this good news with you and I'll let you know more as the date for the hearing gets closer.Love,