Author: Arizona Milk Producers Staff

Kids – do you love to write? Have stories bursting from your head?

Dairy Council^® of Arizona has partnered with Arizona PBS for the 2018 KIDS Writers Contest. Our theme this year is Health and Nutrition. We welcome all Arizona kindergarten through fifth Grade (K-5) students to enter! The deadline is July 9, 2018.

Rules and Entry Form can be found here.

Winners will be announced August 4^th at the Back to School and Health Fair at Los Altos Ranch Market, 1602 East Roosevelt. Good Luck!

Writing Camps

We hope you can attend one of two dairy themed writing camps being offered. These camps are designed for students who love to write and create an opportunity to develop inspiration and writing skills. Mark your calendars for June 6^th and June 20^th.  More details coming soon.

Congratulations to Gallego Intermediate Fine Arts Magnet School in Tucson for receiving the Arizona Cardinals Hometown Grant. The Arizona Cardinals, in partnership with Dairy Council of Arizona, awarded a $10,000 grant to help reinforce health and physical activity in the school. The grant is given as part of Fuel Up to Play 60, a premiere school wellness program in the country.

To add to such an awesome day, Cardinals Alumni Rick Cunningham joined students for on-field fitness activities. The Cardinals cheerleaders and Big Red were also present to cheer kids on as they navigated through 20 combine fitness stations.

Thank you Shamrock Farms for donating Rockin’ Protein to help keep kids energized!

Fuel Up to Play 60 is a partnership with the NFL encouraging kids to Fuel Up with milk, cheese and yogurt for 60 minutes of play a day! Learn how your school can get involved here.

Congratulations to our four Milk Caps for Moo-Lah winners! Each winner received a $100 gift card to Fry’s Food for submitting a creative photo with our limited time milk caps. These milk caps were on 2% and whole milk gallons at Fry’s Food Stores throughout Arizona. Did you see the milk caps, but not enter to win? No worries, we will be running additional contests monthly and throughout  June Dairy Month. Sign up below to be notified on upcoming promotions.  

Fuel Up to Play 60 Student Ambassador Atziry gives an inside look into her time spent at the Fuel Up To Play 60 National Summit!

Jace, Reese, Ryan and Veronica, had the honor of being Half-Pint Judges during the Fiesta Bowl Parade. Tasked with the duty of judging the parade floats as they passed by the kid-size broadcast booth. The morning started with helping AzFamily 3TV report the weather before the parade started. Then our judges were rushed off to a morning breakfast where they were honored with plaques for being selected as this years Half-Pint Judges. They even met Shane Doan, former Arizona Coyote player who served as the Fiesta Bowl Grand Marshall.

As the parade got started our the Half-Pint judges received so much attention by local celebrities stopping by their booth with giveaways and friendly greetings. Throughout the parade they were interviewed on live TV giving updates on what floats they had seen and which one had won their favor. They closed out the parade by announcing their winner, The Arizona Twirling Athletes. The day of a Half-Pint Judge was full of fun, prizes, giveaways and even TV time!

Thank you to our judges for rocking it on such a special day!

You can view video of the entire parade here.

Each year the Arizona Milk Producers selects four kids between 3rd and 5th grade to be Half-Pint Judges. Winners are selected by entering a video online telling what their favorite dairy product is and why. The contest takes place annually through the month of November. 

You could be seeing Daisy the Cow in your local milk aisle soon.

This past November we implemented a pilot of LED immersive display screens on the milk aisle in two local Los Altos Ranch Markets. This eye catching display not only draws customers over to the milk, but also tracks the amount of milk being bought and shopping patterns of consumers. The display is branded in the Arizona Milk Producers colors with Daisy the cow to catch the eye of kids shopping with parents. The pilot runs through January 2018.  If successful we hope to roll this LED display out to other grocers in Arizona. Check out the video of the full display below.

One Arizona teen had the experience of a lifetime when invited to speak at the GENYOUth Gala at New York’s Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum. Kimberly Hasse, a senior at Verrado High School in Buckeye, shared

the stage with prestigious guest speakers including President Clinton, former Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, National Football League Commissioner Roger Goodell and SAP CEO Bill McDermott.  The event messaging highlighted GENYOUth’s commitment to achieving a healthier future for children of all ages by advancing a youth ownership of change.

Verrado High School is a Fuel Up to Play 60 school, GENYOUth’s signature program and the nation’s leading in-school wellness program developed in partnership with the National Football League and the National Dairy Council. Hasse drew national attention from GENYOUth when she was awarded three AdVenture Capital grants in the past three years to fund initiatives created by the Health Occupation Students of America Club, of which she currently serves as an officer.  School-wide projects that  she has helped implement include offerings of healthy lunch options such as smoothies,  access to a mental health room where students can visit if feeling stressed or anxious and a raised garden intended for horticultural therapy with easy access for students with disabilities.

In her speech, Hasse acknowledged the opportunity that programs such as Fuel Up to Play 60 and AdVenture Capital have afforded students across the nation in making a difference in their schools and community wellness.

To find out more about empowering students to make healthy changes at your school, visit the Fuel Up to Play 60 website .  In addition, for opportunities for grades 8-12 visit the AdVenture Capital website.

Fuel Up to Play 60 Student Ambassador Atziry gives an inside look into her time spent with Arizona Cardinals offensive lineman DJ Humphries.