Saint Louis Public Schools

Jackie Joyner-Kersee spent the morning at Hickey Elementary School on Thursday, October 24, encouraging St. Louis Public Schools students, teachers, and parents/guardians to focus on physical activity and good nutrition.

The Olympic gold medalist led the students in a series of physical activities, ranging from touching their toes and running in place to tug-of-war and jumping rope.

“I’m not trying to tell you to be an Olympic athlete, but I’m also not telling you not to dare to dream,” she told the students. “If you dream it, you can make it happen. But you have to work hard. You gotta want it. … It starts at a very young age. It doesn’t matter where you come from. All of our communities—I come from the same community—and the impossible is possible.”   

Mrs. Joyner-Kersee is a representative and spokesperson for the AIM for Fitness Project, an SLPS initiative that motivates students to improve and maintain their own personal health and wellness.

Developed in 2008, the AIM (Academics In Movement) curriculum was created out of a need to find new ways to address the alarming and growing incidence of obesity and obesity-related diseases, particularly among children in urban environments, and the profound and serious disconnects for these students regarding the cause-and-effect relationship between health and fitness practice and lifetime outcomes