Event supports health clinic for children

The fourth annual Get Moving for Healthy Kids is Aug. 25 and you have two excellent reasons to join us.

This event - with a 5K walk and run, youth mile, 800-meter run, 400-meter run, 100-meter run, and other youth activities - promotes activity and stimulates exercise for children and their families. Youth participants are given pedometers so they can monitor their activity throughout the year. There are local professionals with display tables offering ideas and suggestions for beginning and sustaining healthy lifestyles.

Secondly, participation in it promotes Healthy Kids Community Care, our area school-based health clinics. These clinics provide basic health care for children without adequate access to the health care most of us take for granted.

And the generous sponsors of Get Moving for Healthy Kids 2013 have donated more than $60,000 to the Mercy Iowa City's endowment fund at the Community Foundation of Johnson County this year alone.

Proceeds from this fund, added to the generous support of United Way of Johnson County, provide the operating budget for our clinics.

Join us Aug. 25 at City High as we welcome families, individuals, runners, walkers, young and old. You can download the registration form or register online at www.getmovingforhealthykids.org.

The event opens at 7:15 a.m. for walk-in registration and packet pickup with events beginning at 8 a.m. Several of our sponsors have provided registration scholarship funds for those needing it, which can be accessed at the GMHK website.

Dr. Peter D. Wallace

Iowa City