Active for the Future

Gavin Plumton Alex Nguyen Joan Medina Diaz Yifei Li Steven Barcey

It is possible that Texans could lose 26 billion dollars due to obesity by 2040(McCusker 2007). At the same time nearly 31% of people in the north Texas are considered obese by the CDC which is estimated to cost us 147 billion annually as of 2008(Finkelstein 2009). It is clear that obesity is a serious problem that needs some serious work in order to prevent it from ballooning out of control. We believe that something can be done to help alleviate the problems caused by obesity by striking directly at one of its core causes. By encouraging people to lead more active lives their personal quality of life can be improved as well as improving the general economy and state of the north Texas region. Estimates by the state comptroller, Susan Combs, in February 2011 put the costs for Texas businesses at 9.5 billion in 2009 and in the same report the comptroller estimates that those costs could rise to 32.5 billion for Texas business by 2030. We believe the best way to increase the activity level of a segment of the population is to host an event in the area we wish to improve. The event we are currently planning would be an all-day outdoor fair type event with a short marathon as the primary focus. The event will be able to draw in people from all demographics in order to have the greatest possible effect on the area. This will also allow us to have a greater effect on children, which will lead them to have more active lives. Several studies (Brown 2008) have shown that teaching children to be active early in life can prevent obesity before it even has a chance to set in, which would prevent the greater expenses that come later in life. A large advantage is that the event itself has a secondary purpose of improving brand recognition and visibility in the area the event is hosted in. We will have multiple opportunities during the event to increase the general visibility of Dr. Pepper brand through the distribution of brand-marked items and increased public visibility amongst a key demographic. We will also be able to have our brand logo displayed in various places throughout the event to help increase visibility. One of the biggest advantages to hosting this sort of event is that the budget required for the event is very low compared to other types of events that would have a similar effect. We can recruit volunteers from the surrounding area schools to help staff the event which will also have the added effect of increasing goodwill and brand loyalty. This will also have the benefit creating a viral marketing situation in which word of the event is spread through social media and through personal contacts at no cost to us and they will encourage their immediate circle of friends and family to come to the event. This means that the low staffing costs and low advertising costs in go hand in hand together to keep costs for the event down.

Background

It is said that by the year 2040, obese children are poised to triple Texas' current adult obesity rate. Today, one in three Texan children are overweight or obese and that number is only increasing (Arons 2011). There are a large number of factors that can contribute to childhood obesity such as: genetic or hereditary causes, poor food choices by caregivers or guardians, loneliness which can lead to overeating, boredom which can lead to poor appetite control, stress caused by family or personal difficulties and untreated or undiagnosed medical or psychological problems (Combs 2011). Not only does obesity reduce children's quality of life but its cost presents a lifetime of high expenses to both the individual afflicted and to the general society of Texas. Childhood obesity-associated health care is more expensive on average than health care for non-obese people. During childhood, obese children's hospitalization expenses are higher, due to longer lengths of stay and other increased costs. When children become obese adults, who are more likely to occur than non-obese children, their medical costs are 42% higher than for normal-weight adults. In 2005, obesity-related medical costs in Texas exceeded $1.37 billion (Arons 2011).

(Texas Medical Association) There are significant costs related to childhood obesity at both work and school. The school costs can include, increased absences, lower grades, and lower TAKS score which are all associated with childhood obesity. Children, and especially adolescents, who are overweight and obese suffer from stigma, which can lower self confidence, resulting in lowered goals and performance. When obese children grow up, their productivity and wages are lower than for

people who were healthy-weight as children (Arons 2011). Fortunately, obesity is a preventable condition. Innovative policies can reach children while they are still young, reversing their unhealthy weight trends, and preventing weight gain in the first place. Texas has taken bold first steps toward reducing childhood obesity in both the legislative and executive branches of the state government and in the private sector But significant works remains in order to quell this rising crisis. In May 2006, to help combat childhood obesity, the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group took a pledge and promise to remove highly sweetened soft drinks from schools and provide lowercalorie options in age-appropriate portions (Combs 2011). The Dr. Pepper Snapple Group believes "that the key to healthy living is managing calories in and calories out. Our goal is to help families achieve that balance by providing the tools, places and inspiration to make physical activity a daily priority" (Let's Play 2012). With this vision in mind, the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group wants to create an outdoor all day events for families of different shapes and sizes to come and get active while having some fun too. At this event, we will educate families on how to become more pro-active about fighting childhood obesity and give them some helpful tips on how to create balance meals. Also, we will encourage kids to get active and show them how much fun it is to be healthy.

Proposed Plan

We propose to host a huge outdoor event at Klyde Warren Park in the summer of 2013 to raise awareness for child obesity and to encourage the participants to live a healthier lifestyle by showing them that being outdoors and being active is fun and entertaining. Child obesity is an epidemic that will lead to future health risk if awareness is not raised on this issue and major steps are not taken by all those who can in order to prevent obesity from becoming an out of control epidemic. The event will have a walk as its main focus with many activities afterwards for the children and families to participate in. The primary goal of the event is to encourage families and children to come out and enjoy outdoor activities so that they are aware of other options than sitting on the couch at home playing video games or watching TV. Since this event is to be focused on encouraging lifelong healthy habits among children, after the walk we will have several minor events and games set up for the children to enjoy and to leave a lasting impression on them of how fun being active can be. Special awards will be given out to milestones reached during the walk for the kids to collect. This will give the kids something to worked towards and to encourage a competitive spirit which will push them to work harder and be more active during the event.

There will be mist tents placed along the walking course and at the start zone where the minor events will be located since it is going to be scheduled on a summer day in Texas so it is very likely to be a hot day. After entertaining the kids with a fun family-oriented environment, we will have speakers come up and talk to the participants about nutrition and the importance of portion control and eating healthy. The speakers will be invited from local and state health groups and will be encouraged to bring literature and other give away items that can be distributed to the families. A local radio station MC is an advocate of running and outdoor exercise and is willing to advertise the event during his on-air time at the radio. He is also willing to come out to the event itself and do a live broadcast from the event for a few hours which will help increase both attendance and awareness of the event. Healthy eateries will also be approached about attending the event to set up booths to sell food. The groups offered this option would be selected carefully to ensure that only companies that have a strong emphasis on healthy, nutritious food would be invited. These booths would be run entirely by the companies participating and while we would retain control over who is and is not invited, all the costs of the food and set up of the individual boots will be covered by the group running the booth. The groups invited would be both companies selling health food and organizations that are concerned about healthy eating. We have spoken to the city and local law enforcements for the proper permits for the walk and a route has been outlined. Since this event is primarily for the children, the route has been shortened and deemed safe for them to travel through around the park. We are trying to get at least 100 volunteers to go a long with the hundreds people we plan on participating. Families are encouraged to spread the word to get more people to come out. To register for the walk, a website has been setup for families to go online and sign up for the event. Participants will be encouraged to sign up online through the website to allow us to get a more accurate count of the total number of attendees planning to be there. The participants will also be able to reserve a certain number of shirts through the website so that they are sure to get one and to encourage them to sign up before hand instead of simply showing up to the event. Those who do not sign up online will not be discouraged though and there will be extra shirts ordered so it will be possible for those who do not sign up to get a shirt. On the day of the event there will be a check in station for all participants. There will be shirts reserved for online sign ups at the station as well as extras shirts for those simply arriving without any prior signup. Each participant will be given a handout with the schedule of the event as well as all needed emergency contact information should something occur during the walk. The actual sign in process will also act as a chance to inform all participants about the minor events planned for later as well as letting them know the course and where the emergency and water stations are. Flyers will be distributed to local schools and outdoor organizations to help increase awareness of the event. School groups such as Parent Teacher Associations will also be approached about the event as they can both advertise the event and provide volunteers for it.

The event would be held from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm during a yet to be determined summer day. The walk will be the primary event in the morning while the minor events will occur after the walk and last through the end of the event. Throughout the day we will be giving out prizes to the event winners. Water will be supplied to all participants.

Schedule
Here is the itinerary on how the day would be set up:

Start time 9:00 am 10:00am 11:00 am 12:00 pm 1:00 pm

End Time 10:00 am 10:30 am 12:00 pm 1:00 pm 3:00 pm

Task Check-in All of the volunteers and participants will sign in and pick up their t-shirts for the walk. Introduction to the event. Start to the event. Participants will walk for 2 miles around the park on the designed route. Afternoon lunch food and drink will be given out after the race for the participants to enjoy. Children play time after the walk there will be me a small carnival where the children can enjoy the day and relax The volunteers speak to the children Clean up

Duration 1 hour 30 min. 1 hour 1 hour 2 hours

3:00 pm 3:30 pm

3:30 pm 5:00 pm

30 min 1.5 hours

Staffing

The staffing for the event will consist of three main groups. The first group will be composed of people from within our company. they will be responsible for outreach to the local schools and community organizations in order to spread awareness of the event and to seek out volunteers from within the community. The group will be small and be made up of those directly involved in the planning and management of the event. This first groups will have two goals. The first goal will be to gather volunteers from the local community organizations such as parent teacher associations and local health clubs. These volunteers would be tasked with

spreading awareness of the event to their community groups and encouraging participants. They would also look for volunteers for the event itself. Since many of those groups are themselves volunteers organizations for their communities we expect them to be able to gather a large number of volunteers. We will need to aim at having a larger number of volunteers signed up for the event then we expect to need in order to compensate for the inevitable number of those who do not show. The second goal for the primary management group will be the detailed planning of the event. While the rough details can be determined well in advance the exact number of expected participants will be likely to change in amount as time goes by and other involved parties may require changes as well. The management group will need to be able to compensate for these changes and keep the whole event coordinated. On the actual day of the event the required staffing levels will reflect the expected number of participants. We are currently predicting approximately 400 people to attend the event. Although this number may possibly change as the event comes closer we should be able to get a more accurate count once the website is open and accepting registrations and the volunteers for the event itself begin signing up. There will be three stops along the walking path itself, each of which will have two volunteers at a minimum who will hand out water and prizes for the children. The volunteers will be scheduled in short shifts to allow the volunteers time to enjoy the walks with any family or friends they might have invited and to allow for more flexible scheduling of the volunteers. There will also be a pair of volunteers who will make their way around the track with water to resupply any station begins to run dry. A local fire station has also volunteered to have a booth to talk about safe practices during the summer to prevent heat stroke and dehydration. The booth will be staffed by the fire station completely and will have an EMT crew there. Although the EMT crew will be there to talk about the dangers of dehydration, they will be available if there is an emergency on the walking course or at any of the minor events afterwards. The crew at that booth will also be coming in their vehicles so they will be fully equipped to respond to any health emergency at the event. As previously mentioned, several health organizations will be invited to attend, however they will be providing their own staff completely as well as their own booths. The same goes for the health food vendors will be attending. They will be responsible for their own staff and set up. We will provide table and chairs for diners as well as trash receptacles for the participants though. The last group of volunteers needed will be at the end of the day for clean up. We expect this to take some time and have scheduled a large number of volunteers for this as we expect many to simply not show up. We also are hoping that event participants have made good use of the trash bins which will be placed across the area, but we are prepared in case there is significant littering. The park itself has dumpsters nearby which can be used so we will only need to provide trash bags and the people to move the trash.

Budget
Direct Costs. We estimate that there will be 400 participants who will take part in this event as well as at least 100 volunteers, all of whom will need to be provided with shirts and hats. We can use our standard custom t-shirt company, Daotee, to print the logo and slogan on the giveaway items. We are currently planning on ordering 600, but will adjust the order closer to the event as we get more accurate information on expected attendance rates. Participants and volunteers at the event will be provided with water which will be free of charge for them. We will talk to our internal bottled water division first to see if they are willing to provide the water, but if they are not we can easily pick up enough packs from WalMart. 65 packs for $240 will give us 1560 bottles. Tent capacities listed by rentaltent.com show: Standing: number of people times 4=SQ. FT needed Sitting: number of people times 6=SQ.FT needed Sitting at tables: take number of people divided by 8 or 10 then times by 100=SQ. FT needed. Dancing or Gaming: number of people times 6=SQ. FT needed. We estimate there will be approximately 600 people at maximum possible peak for lunch. Therefore, total SQ. FT we needed is 600/10 X 100 + 600 X 6 = 9600. In addition, we also need extra space for chair and table storage so the 100x120 tent would cover us the best. The final price plus tax will be $ 6375 for the tents. We will also need tents for each of the three stops along the walking course where water is being handed out. Each of these tents will be 10'x10' to provide space for both the volunteers and anyone who needs to take a break out of the sun. These tents will cost $287. We will also need tables and chairs for the participants and volunteers. We expect 60 tables and 600 chairs to be enough which we can rent from partytimeplus.com. The tables will total up to $542 and the chairs will total up to be $606 Indirect Cost We will need to provide flyers to distribute to each of the community groups that will be advertising for us as well as any school groups. We choose zazzle.com because there will be 60%

off if we order 1000+ sheets. We expect to need 5000 so that threshold is easy to reach. The final price for the flyers will be $600. The registration site will be very simple without any extras so we can simply hire a contractor or even a student from a local university computer science department to build it. Both web domain registration and web site construction are cheap if you are not looking for anything fancy, so we do not expect the web site to cost more than $150. After the event we will need to clean up any leftover trash and litter as well as keeping the trash bins bags replaced as they fill up. We expect to need approximately 200 trash bags over the course of the day. We can simply buy 5 packs of 40 bags each from Wall-Mart for a total of $40. If we need more at any point the nearest large retailer should have more and trash bags are cheap so having enough of them is not a major issue.

Authorization
We are convinced that the event outlined here will be able to help quell the already significant and rising problem of obesity and serve as a model and example for other such events across the nation. However, the timing of this event is important as it must come in early summer soon after the end of school so a quick response is required. We would need to get the authorization for this event at least by the start of 2013 in order to have everything in place by summer.

References

McCusker, M. E. (2007). The Burden of Overweight and Obesity in Texas, 2000-2040. Retrieved November 24, 2012, from the Texas Department of Health's website: http://www.dshs.state.tx.us/obesity/pdf/Cost_Obesity_Report.pdf Finkelstein, Trogdon, Cohen, Dietz. Annual Medical Spending Attributable To Obesity: PayerAnd Service-Specific Estimates Health Affairs, 28, no.5 (2009):w822-w831. Health Affairs, 28, no.5 (2009):w822-w831 Combs, S. (2011, February). Gaining Costs, Losing Time: The Obesity Crisis in Texas. Retrieved from http://www.window.state.tx.us/specialrpt/obesitycost/ Brown, T., & Summerbell, C. (2008). Systematic review of schoolbased interventions that focus on changing dietary intake and physical activity levels to prevent childhood obesity: an update to the obesity guidance produced by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence. Obesity reviews, 10(1), 110-141. Arons, Abigail (2011). Childhood Obesity in Texas: The Costs, The Policies, and a Framework for the Future. Retrieved from http://www.childhealthtx.org/pdfs/Childhood%20Obesity%20in%20Texas%20Report.pdf Combs, Susan (2011). Reducing Childhood Obesity. Retrieved from http://www.window.state.tx.us/specialrpt/obesitycost/index.php Let's Play. (2012). Dr. Pepper Snapple Group Website. Retrieve from http://www.drpeppersnapplegroup.com/values/lets-play/ Texas Medical Association. Retrieved from http://www.texmed.org/

Appendix I (Full Budget Listing)

Budget Items Direct Cost T-shirts (600 T-shirts, $1.5 each) Hats (600 Hats, $1.2 each) Purified water (1560 bottles, $3.48 for 24ct, tax 6.25%) One 100x120 tent ($ 6000 each, 1-7 days rental, tax 6.25%) Three 10x10 tents ($ 90 each, 1-7 days rental, tax 6.25%) 60 Round tables-seats up to 10 people (60 tables, $ 8.5 each, 1 day rental, tax 6.25%) Folding chairs (600 folding chairs, $ 0.95, 1day rental, tax 6.25%) Total Direct Cost Indirect Cost Flyers (5000 flyers, $ 7.5 for 25 sheets, 60% off when order1000+ sheets) Advertisement Website Clean-up cost (5 packs trash bag, 40 trash bags each pack, $ 7.47 each pack, tax 6.25%) Total Indirect Cost Total Expense Overhead: 10% Total Request (estimated) The Chamber will pay half of the cost Total Request (actual)

Amount

Sub-total

$ 900 $ 720 $ 240.34 $ 6375 $ 286.88 $ 541.88 $ 605.63 $ 9669.73

$ 600 $ 150 $ 39.68 $ 789.68 $ 10459.4 1 $1045.94 $ 11505.3 5 ($5752.6 8) $ 5752.68