Students teach health in W. Phila.

Every week, more than 60 Penn students and faculty travel westward to Sayre Middle School at 58th and Walnut streets.

The volunteers take part in a program known as the Sayre-Beacon Health Promotion and Disease Prevention Program, which educates local students about the benefits of healthy living.

"The program has been around for a little more than a year," said Alyssa Lord, the program's coordinator. "But the concept has been around for quite a long time."

And in that year, the program has more than tripled in size and now includes 10 programs that involve approximately 650 out of 1,000 Sayre students.

"Most of these programs have really come about as a result of talking with the students, teachers [and] family members within the community to figure out how do we address the various health disparities that exist within West Philadelphia in a way that we engage the community," Lord explained.

Within the schools, the programs -- which range from the Fruit Stand Initiative, in which students combine knowledge of nutrition with entrepreneurship, to the Health Problem-Based Learning Project, which addresses topics such as cancer, HIV/AIDS, violence, drugs and alcohol -- make "the students want to learn again," Lord said.

But Lord stressed that the program is trying to reach out to more than just students. "We are desperately trying to work with the community," she said.

Last year, during one of the free medical and dental screenings that the program runs at Sayre, a community member was found to have cardiac arrhythmia, Lord said.

"The guy had been in the Navy and just never realized that he could go down to the [Department of Veterans Affairs] and receive free treatment," Lord said. Through these programs, the community not only gains awareness about health problems such as high blood pressure, HIV/AIDS and diabetes, but also gets testing and medical attention that would otherwise not be available.

Darlene Johnson, an eighth grade teacher at Sayre, said that the variety of knowledge and experience that her students have gained has made a difference.

"It's invaluable because it makes them aware of what they're putting in their body," Johnson said. She added that it gives them the opportunity to try new things. For instance, many of her students had never tried fresh pineapple before, and several had never tasted the fruit at all.

However, the kids in the program are not just learning the facts of everyday nutrition -- they are also passing on their new knowledge to the rest of the school.

"I really believe it will be a really well-balanced program that will make their peers well informed," Johnson said.

Jennifer Boyd-Waller, an eighth grade teacher, agreed and added that the benefits could be seen directly in the classroom. "The biggest improvement I see is that students are speaking up in class and answering questions."

Johnson also appreciated "the wealth of knowledge" and the cultural diversity that the Penn students provided.

And such diversity benefits the other side as well, dispelling stereotypes and myths about those who surround Penn.

"There is this notion that if you have a kid [who] goes to school in West Philadelphia, you're automatically going to think that they are a thug," Lord said, "when they are [actually] extraordinarily bright and inquisitive and amazing young men and women."

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