Grassroots Health

Grassroots Health (formerly known as The Grassroot Project), was founded in 2009 by college athletes who were committed to re-thinking health education and wellness in schools. The organization was initially ignited in response to the growing HIV epidemic among teenagers in DC, and the opportunity to promote HIV prevention by using a grassroots model. In 2009, 40 Georgetown athletes built a program that used sports as a tool to break the stigma around sex, HIV, and relationships. They reached students at 60 schools with an innovative, games-based sex education and wellness promotion program. Over the past decade, the staff and athletes at Grassroots Health have expanded their model into a comprehensive set of adolescent health programs.

We deliver a three-year series of games-based health promotion programs facilitated by trained NCAA college athlete volunteer health educators. Our evidence-informed programs take place during the school day as a supplement to P.E. and health classes, and they focus on key topic areas based on the national health education standards: nutritional health in 6th grade, sexual health in 7th grade, and mental health in 8th grade. In addition, we facilitate two-session after school health promotion workshops for the parents and caregivers of our students, and we host semi-annual linkage-to-care health fairs to connect our youth to clinical and social support services.

We believe that school is a key place to improve young people’s health, and that schools present an opportunity to change the “culture of health” — the way students think about their health, access health services, and understand their responsibility to support others’ health. We also believe that P.E. and health are not an extra, but instead should be treated with the same attention as other academic subjects. When schools do this, not only are students healthier and happier, but they also perform better academically.

Our unique model supports schools to provide high-quality health education and PE by reducing teacher-to-student ratio by a factor of 5, reducing the time needed to teach health and PE by half (by combining both into a single curriculum), and by providing an engaging, standards-aligned, and community-rooted curriculum that students enjoy.

We are on a mission to expand our model nationally, and we hope you’ll join us by reading more, reaching out, and supporting us if you feel so inclined.