Nordic partners with Tri 4 Schools to help kids run, swim, and bike their way to healthier lives

In 2011, Katie Hensel was searching for a way to combine her passion for health and fitness and her business background. She had been doing triathlons and Ironman competitions since college, and she knew how powerful triathlons could be in raising self-esteem, developing athleticism, and enforcing the importance of discipline in achieving a goal.

She was also extremely disturbed by the finding that her future children could have shorter life expectancies than she and her husband, driven by the rapid rate in childhood obesity.

“I couldn’t believe that my kids were being set up for shorter, more unhealthy lives than the one I lead currently,” Katie said. “I wanted to do something about that, and I knew how much triathlons had changed my life and the way I think.”

Suddenly it clicked: She would form a non-profit that supported fitness efforts through the Madison school system, providing much-needed funds for physical education and leveraging the teachers who knew how to coach children to succeed.

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Katie is now the executive director of Tri 4 Schools, a Dane County-based non-profit that uses swimming, biking, and running to get kids active and fight childhood obesity. Since its inception five years ago, Tri 4 Schools has set up three annual children’s triathlons in Sun Prairie, Middleton, and Waunakee, as well as a family mud run that encourages parents and kids to be active together.

The kids train for the triathlon via an after-school program coached by school staff. “Sometimes it’s a gym teacher or a teacher who’s passionate about health and fitness,” Katie said. “The coolest thing is that the coaches really like interacting with the kids in a slightly different setting. It helps them get to know the kids a lot better and serve as a mentor in a different way for them.”

This week, Nordic is working with Tri 4 Schools to prepare for and staff one of their triathlons, which takes place at Waunakee High School on Saturday. Nordic also supplied a water bottle to each of the children participating in the Tri 4 Schools program this year – a total of 600 water bottles.

Melanie Stamerjohn, senior Nordic consultant, serves on the board of Tri 4 Schools and has been involved in the organization for several years. She says the most rewarding part of the program is opening doors for children who normally wouldn’t have access to health and fitness activities.

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“There are so many families with kids who don’t have access to more intimate coaching opportunities,” she said. “Through Tri 4 Schools, when kids participate in the program, their schools get more funding. They’re making their school money and they don’t even realize because they’re having so much fun in the program.”

Katie says that she’s seen children blossom as a result of the program.

“We had an eighth grader write an essay about Tri 4 Schools, and she’s at an age where it’s not cool to be sweaty and try hard and get dirty,” she said. “She wrote that through the program, she’s learned to dig deep, be resilient, and never give up on herself. This is something she’ll be able to do for the rest of her life and it will make a difference in whatever she chooses to do.”

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NORDIC'S TAKE ON CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY GET INVOLVED IN TRI 4 SCHOOLS

Topics: corporate social responsibility

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