Welcome to Minnesota Active Living Network Online!
Active living is a way of life that incorporates physical activity into daily routines. Here you can ask questions of local and national experts, explore various topics related to active living, find out what is happening in Minnesota communities around active living, as well as search for other relevant issue areas.
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What's New
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota hosts Open Streets Winter Institute on Feb. 7 (no comments) by Prevention Minnesota
| 1.11.12
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota is excited to announce that it will host an Open Streets Winter Institute on Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012 from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at its conference center in Eagan. Open Streets are an event that closes the streets to cars and opens them to all non-motorized modes and people of all abilities. They help the public reimagine the street as a place for people, not just cars. These events also help to begin shifting norms around using active modes for transportation and can build support for upcoming policy or infrastructure changes. If you want to create such a safe space in your community for a day (or beyond), this training is for you. Read on for more info and to register.
Active Living: 2011 Successes From Across Minnesota (no comments) by Prevention Minnesota
| Making it happen in Minnesota
| 11.30.11
Welcome to our final 2011 issue for Minnesota Active Living Network News. On behalf of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota’s Center for Prevention's Active Living team, we thank all of you for your hard work, leadership and collaboration with us in 2011. With your help, it's been a productive and rewarding year for Active Living in Minnesota. Read the great stories from across the state here about the communities, individuals and organizations who "made it happen" in Minnesota in 2011.
Open Streets: Turning up the volume on public engagement (no comments) by Katherine Bass
| 11.30.11
Katherine Bass, senior community prevention consultant at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, explores the potential for open streets events to further engage the public around support for walking and bicycling and shares new resources available for event organizers. Also, SAVE THE DATE for a day-long training on effective execution of open streets events: February 7, 2012.
Streets Alive! An Open Streets Case Study (video) (no comments) by Prevention Minnesota
| 11.30.11
This documentary showcases the car-free Sunday, or Ciclovía, event held in Fargo-Moorhead in 2010. For the first time, streets in the Fargo-Moorhead area were closed to motorized vehicles for a physical activity festival. Click below to view the video.
Bloomington, Edina and Richfield and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota join forces to create Minnesota’s first healthy ‘do.® towns’ (no comments) by Prevention Minnesota
| 10.05.11
On Sept. 27, 2011, the mayors of Bloomington, Edina and Richfield, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota (Blue Cross) launched an 18-month project to improve the health of their communities by making changes that support healthy eating and active living choices. The initiative, called “do.town,” focuses on preventing illness caused by unhealthy eating and physical inactivity, which combined are the second leading cause of death and disease in Minnesota.
Fire Up Your Feet is program up and running (no comments) by Minnesota SafeRoutes
| Safe Routes to School
| 10.05.11
A Sept. 20, 2011, segment on the “KARE-11 Sunrise” show featured an interview with Jill Oldenburg, parent coordinator for "Fire Up Your Feet.” The new program encourages people to fire up their families to get physically active, be healthy and create livable, sustainable communities. The program is part of the Safe Routes to School National Partnership and sponsored by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota and the Complete Streets Coalition offering Complete Streets toolkits (no comments) by Vayong Moua
| 8.25.10
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota and the Minnesota Complete Streets Coalition have published the first edition of two toolkits to help support local Complete Streets work. The Local Government Toolkit is geared toward local elected officials and city staff, while the Local Advocates Toolkit is for citizens or community groups. Read more and download the PDFs.
New Safe Routes to School Video Available from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota’s Center for Prevention (no comments) by Prevention Minnesota
| 4.07.10
The Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota’s Center for Prevention has produced a new video showing how Red Pine Elementary School in Eagan, Minn., uses Safe Routes to School to support more kids walking or biking to school.
New “Building a Walkable, Bikeable Community” Video Available as Resource for Educating Communities (no comments) by Katherine Bass
| Making it happen in Minnesota
| 4.07.10
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota’s Center for Prevention recently worked with the City of Hopkins, Minn., to produce a new video, “Building a Walkable, Bikeable Community,” that tells the story of how community leaders have made strategic decisions to create an activity-friendly city.