Press Releases

BAWSI Earns Award of Excellence from YMCA Activate America

SAN JOSE, Calif. (Nov. 14, 2006) - The Bay Area Women's Sports Initiative earned an Award of Excellence from the YMCA's Activate America, an initiative designed to address national obesity trends and the resulting health crisis. BAWSI's CEO, Marlene Bjornsrud, was on hand to receive the award at the First Annual Activate America Awards of Excellence Recognition Luncheon at the Santa Clara Hilton on November 14, 2006. Brandi Chastain, the guest speaker, commended all the award winners for their efforts in spreading health and wellness to members of the community.

The Activate America Award of Excellence is a public recognition of community entities that work toward changing the behavior of children and adults to live healthier lives. The criteria for the Award of Excellence includes increasing activity levels of children and adults, offering nutritional guidance or healthy food alternatives, health and fitness education, and measures for determining the effectiveness of programs. The BAWSI Girls Fitness Teams, Salud por Vida, Women Running the Country, and BAWSI Rollers are all programs which encourage participants to exercise more and include nutritional information. So far, over 1,000 lives in the South Bay have been changed by BAWSI programs, and these programs will expand up the peninsula in 2007. Congratulations to Marlene and BAWSI for this award.

BAWSI
BAWSI is a public benefit, nonprofit corporation that creates programs and partnerships through which women athletes bring health, hope and wholeness to our community. Founded in 2005 by Olympic and World Cup soccer stars Brandi Chastain and Julie Foudy and Marlene Bjornsrud, former general manager of the San Jose CyberRays women's professional soccer team, BAWSI provides a meaningful path for women athletes to become a more visible and valued part of the Bay Area sports culture. Visit our website at www.bawsi.org.

Jody Meacham BAY AREA WOMEN'S SPORTS INITIATIVE 408.267.3985