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andyberndt's Blog


Catalyst Youth Board Member Mariah Geiger Featured on Kare 11

The one and only Mariah G was featured on the Kare 11 Today show, with Diana Peirce. She was making some healthy snacks and talking about our upcoming summit. She nailed it! There is a link to the recipes below!       Catalyst Mini-Summit Snack Station Recipes
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Catalyst youth board member Kate Kuehl profiled in newspaper!

Very proud of Kate! Catalyst rock star!!! Printed in Quad Community Press - link here Centennial sophomore giving school heads up on health Best and Brightest: Kate Kuehl Published:Tuesday, March 15, 2011 12:38 PM CDTLINO LAKES - With help from teachers and a few classmates, Centennial sophomore Kate Kuehl is trying to make her school a healthier place.Kuehl is an activist at statewide youth movement organization Catalyst, which campaigns for healthy eating and fights the...
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Catalyst Joins in on Tobacco Tax Rally at the Capital. Are you in??

As we wrote about before in our blog, Catalyst is in support of the upcoming tobacco tax legislation.  It's a proven way to get teens not to start, and help adults quit.  If you had the opportunity to prevent more than 50,000 kids from smoking AND save over $1 billion in health care costs, wouldn't you? Tobacco kills more than 5,000 Minnesotans every year. Tobacco causes 30% of cancer deaths. Tobacco is linked to 15...
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Catalyst students grab cameras, document their world

Students from 13 communities across the state, including many students from Catalyst, were armed with cameras and a mission to document their world. They were trained on the basics of photojournalism, then worked to document what was helping them stay healthy, and what was holding them back. They then captioned the photo's to tell a story of what's going on in their community. Check out the video to see what they came up with. You'll also...
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Catalyst 2010 Wrap-Up. It was a big Year.

So, it's a new year for Catalyst. I thought we'd run down major hits of 2010, talk about some successes and then what's up next for us.  Download the full report in PDF here.  Students engaged since program began: 5,680   Students engaged in 2010: 810   Major Projects of 2010 Henry Sibley Student Chef Project We worked with a group of great students at Henry Sibley High School, a local chef, and the food service staff to...
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Catalyst Featured on The Lunch Tray Blog

We were recently profiled on the Lunch Tray blog. Definitely check out Bettina's site, it's a great look into how other cities are working on getting great food in their schools.  http://www.thelunchtray.com/interview-with-andy-berndt-of-catalyst-peer-to-peer-nutrition-advocacy-for-teens/ Excerpted from the blog post: The Lunch Tray is about “kids and food” but I find (probably because my own kids are in elementary school) that I often fail to write about kids at the far ends of the age spectrum — babies...
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11-Year Old Birke Baehr talks at TED: What's wrong with our food system

  This kid is awesome. He clearly knows his stuff. What a wicked talk. Check it out, it's only 5 minutes long.  From http://www.ted.com/talks/birke_baehr_what_s_wrong_with_our_food_system.html 11-year-old Birke Baehr presents his take on a major source of our food -- far-away and less-than-picturesque industrial farms. Keeping farms out of sight promotes a rosy, unreal picture of big-box agriculture, he argues, as he outlines the case to green and localize food production. About Birke Baehr Birke Baehr wants us...
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Catalyst Summit 2011 - April 9-10 - Mpls, MN - Info and Sign Up!

Announcing the 2011 Catalyst Summit!Date: April 9-10, 2011Location: Minneapolis, MNCost: FREE! All you have to do is get there Catalyst is looking for new activists to get involved in a movement to change school food, and get people more physically active. At Catalyst, we look for innovative, interactive ways to get out the message about healthy eating--from guerrilla art, to music, to online media.  The annual Catalyst Summit is an opportunity to get trained on...
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Catalyst Joins Raise it for Health Coalition to Raise Minnesota's Tobacco Tax

Catalyst is very pleased to be a part of numerous organizations in working to raise Minnesota's tobacco tax. Raising the tobacco tax has been proven to lower teen tobacco use, and encourage current smokers to quit. More than 5,500 Minnesotans still die from tobacco-related disease each year and tobacco continues to be a major driver of the state's escalating health care costs. Raise it for Health supports significantly raising the price of tobacco products in...
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Sarah Palin Protests Healthy School Food by Sending Cookies to Pennsylvania School

I'm not one to frequently editorialize. But this story is ridiculous. - Andy   p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; line-height: 19.0px; font: 15.0px Arial; color: #555555} Ex-Alaska Governor Dishes on Cookies and People Magazine Interview   From ABC News An effort by Pennsylvania schools to get students to eat healthier is coming under fire from Sarah Palin. The proposed new guidelines would limit the amount of sweets in classroom parties and reduce the number...
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