PreventObesity.net article — March 2013

 

In its hey­day, Atlanta’s his­toric Pull­man Train Yard was where the South’s train cars and large loco­mo­tives were repaired and refit­ted for ser­vice. These days, the 25-acre site sits aban­doned, a decay­ing piece of Atlanta’s indus­tri­al past.

But PreventObesity.net Leader David Epstein envi­sions a bright new future for the train yard. He wants to trans­form it into a sports and nutri­tion facil­i­ty, where Atlanta res­i­dents — espe­cial­ly chil­dren — can take part in a num­ber of sports and activ­i­ties and also learn how to eat healthy.

“In Atlanta, we have a tremen­dous amount of peo­ple and tons of fam­i­lies who are mov­ing back into the city, and we just don’t have the infra­struc­ture for sports and activ­i­ties,” he says. “I thought, ‘We have to find some space, so old indus­tri­al spaces in town, and turn them into active spaces.’”

A preschool teacher and ten­nis coach, Epstein launched the non­prof­it Atlanta Con­tact­Point with the mis­sion of build­ing a mul­ti-use activ­i­ty cen­ter that can be used to pro­mote over­all wellness.

The Pull­man train yard site is per­fect, he says. Near­by pub­lic tran­sit con­nects the North and South sides of the city, mean­ing all Atlanta res­i­dents will be able to use it, espe­cial­ly low-income res­i­dents who might not have any oth­er options. The site also is big enough to accom­mo­date mul­ti­ple needs, from sports fields to indoor bas­ket­ball courts to a green­house and office space for non­prof­it groups.

The goal, Epstein says, is to make it a cen­tral place for Atlanta denizens to get healthy. “I thought, ‘Wow, this is a great oppor­tu­ni­ty to turn this space into a greens space, where every square inch will be for activ­i­ty,” Epstein says.

While Atlanta Con­tact­Point rais­es the funds nec­es­sary to buy the site — the state is tak­ing bids on the prop­er­ty lat­er this year, Epstein says — the orga­ni­za­tion already is work­ing to build healthy habits with its “PLAY DAYs.” Fam­i­ly-focused events held at local Atlanta parks, the PLAY DAYs offer res­i­dents the chance to try out dif­fer­ent types of sports and activities.

Through­out the day, local coach­es and orga­ni­za­tions offer class­es to get kids phys­i­cal­ly active, includ­ing flag foot­ball, ulti­mate Fris­bee, street hock­ey, yoga, mar­tial arts, ten­nis, dance and even hula-hooping.

“You just get a choice to play dif­fer­ent sports you might not nor­mal­ly get to play,” Epstein says. “We want kids to be intro­duced to new things.”

Local farmer’s mar­kets and oth­er retail­ers also are sched­uled to take part in the PLAY DAYS, offer­ing sam­ples of healthy prod­ucts to try at home. Con­tact­Point also will help pro­mote pub­lic tran­sit and alter­na­tive trans­porta­tion via “Bike to PLAY DAY,” which will see par­tic­i­pants meet­ing at a tran­sit sta­tion and bicy­cling to the park where the main event is being held.

Six PLAY DAYs are already sched­uled be held this year, with the first one set for March 16. While it might be a few years before the new facil­i­ty is built at the old Pull­man site, Epstein is con­fi­dent that his orga­ni­za­tion already is mak­ing an impact.

“It’s all about play­ing, hav­ing fun and learn­ing about what it takes to be healthy,” Epstein says. “And these are things we can do now.”

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Proposed Location Benefits & Added Values

Eco­nom­ic           

jobs cre­ation | health­care cost sav­ings |transportation/CO2

Pub­lic Health 

child and adult obe­si­ty | dia­betes and sug­ar relat­ed dis­eases | car­dio vas­cu­lar dis­eases | per­son­al hygiene | environmental/CO2

Edu­ca­tion           

arts | sports |cul­ture |pro­fes­sion­al train­ings | nutri­tion | his­tor­i­cal build­ing and land preservation

Social                   

com­mu­ni­ty build­ing | cross gen­er­a­tion dia­logues and    inter­ac­tions | civics and ethics engage­ments | alter­na­tive entertainment

Brand­ing             

smart cities mod­el |sus­tain­able devel­op­ments | land and his­tor­i­cal preservation

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Jill Maloney C.V.

Repub­lic of Ire­land Nation­al Team:

Par­tic­i­pat­ed in 39 Inter­na­tion­al games to date.  15 UEFA Cham­pi­onship games, 4 World Cup games, 1 as a mem­ber of the ROI Sr Team against the USA WNT in Phoenix on 12/1/12.  Also has played against 4 Eng­lish Pre­mier League pro­fes­sion­al teams and was the goalie for the Ire­land Col­lege All-Stars as a 15 & 16 year old.  First cap was against Eng­land in U19 Tri Nations Tour­na­ment in ‘10 as a 15 year old, won 1–0.  Won first UEFA game in ‘10 against North­ern Ire­land 1–0 in front of 1000 North­ern Ire­land sup­port­ers.  Most recent win was a vicious bat­tle against Ser­bia 3–2 that put the Irish in the Elite ’13 round.  Reached UEFA Cham­pi­onship in ’11/’12 as a mem­ber of the U17 and U19 teams.  Cur­rent­ly with the U19s team that will face Swe­den, Italy, and host Nether­lands in April in the Elite phase of the 2012/13 UEFA Cham­pi­onship.  Was a mem­ber of the 2010 World Cup U17 team that reached the quar­ter finals in Trinidad and Toba­go, team faced Brazil, Cana­da, Ghana, and Japan.  Was one of the youngest play­ers in the Cup at age 15.  Has had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to play 25 dif­fer­ent coun­tries in Ire­land, Eng­land, Trinidad & Toba­go, North­ern Ire­land, Mace­do­nia, Bel­gium, Aus­tria, Nor­way, Ser­bia, Scot­land, and the USA.

USA Nation­al Team:

2009 U14 Girls Nation­al Team – Car­son, CA.   2009 U14 ID Camp Pumona,CA.  2010 U15 Nation­al Team Play­er Pool.  US Soc­cer Train­ing Cen­ter ID Events in 2010 and 2011.

 W‑League:

Back­up goalie for Atlanta Sil­ver­backs 2012.

Col­lege

Grad­u­at­ed HS ear­ly and enrolled at UGA and is a mem­ber of their SEC Women’s Soc­cer Team.  Youngest play­er on team.  Team is cur­rent­ly train­ing for their spring ’13 schedule.

High School:

Starter all three sea­sons (grad­u­at­ed ear­ly, no Sr sea­son).  Team made Geor­gia play­offs all three years.  Upset #1 Brook­wood in first round as a sopho­more 1–0.  Set school records for wins, shutouts, save per­cent­age.  Was Rook­ie of the Year in ’10, Region­al 6AAAAA All Star in ’11 & ’12.  Defen­sive play­er of the year in ’12.  Fulton/Forsyth coun­ty All Star game ’12.  Was team’s sec­ond lead­ing goal scor­er while play­ing only 2 ½’s on the field in ’11.  3 year schol­ar athlete.

Club/ODP:

Mem­ber of GSA 95 Phoenix (’10-’13) ECNL & Nation­al League.  Had per­fect 0.00 GAA in 2010.   Roswell San­tos (’08-’09), Alpharet­ta Unit­ed Super Y (‘95 goalie, ‘94 strik­er) (’08), ASA (’06-’07), Alpharet­ta Ambush (’04-’05).  State Cup Cham­pi­on ’05 and ’06.  State Cup Final­ist ’10.  CASL Show­case Cham­pi­on ’08, Dis­ney Show­case Cham­pi­on ’10, Vul­can and Atlanta Cup Cham­pi­on ’06.  Hunt­ing­ton Beach Nation­al Sand Tour­na­ment Cham­pi­on ’09.  Ranked in top 100 2013 play­ers in ESPN The Rise (65) and Top Draw­er Soc­cer (79).

Geor­gia ODP mem­ber ’07-’12.  Region III team ’08, ’09, & ’10.  Team cap­tain ’11 & ’12.  Geor­gia Team was Region III Cham­pi­on ’11.  Thanks­giv­ing Region­al Pool Games 2009, Coral Gables FLA.  Inter­re­gion­al Nation­al Devel­op­ment Camp Pomona CA 2010 and 2011.

Per­son­al:

Avid read­er and writer, wrote nov­el in ’13.  Enjoys surf­ing, video games, and movie watch­ing.  Excels at base­ball, soft­ball, bas­ket­ball, golf, chess, and top world ranked monop­oly play­er.   Was a NFL PPK final­ist (top 4 of over 100,000 par­tic­i­pants) in ’10 &’11, 3 time Atlanta Fal­con Final­ist, 2 Fal­con time cham­pi­on.   Daugh­ter of Tim and Jen­nifer Mal­oney, one sis­ter Saman­tha (22).  Major­ing in Polit­i­cal Sci­ence and Inter­na­tion­al Affairs.

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2013 March 14th Press Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                    

Con­tact: Nico­la Vidali           Phone: 404–798-6679              E‑Mail: nicv@atlcp.org

March 14th, 2013

ATLANTA CONTACTPOINT (ACP) HOSTS PLAYDAY EVENT

OFFERS MORE THAN 20 ACTIVITIES IN LOCAL PARKS TO PROMOTE HEALTHIER & HAPPIER COMMUNITIES

ATLANTA—On Sat­ur­day, March 16th Atlanta Con­tact­Point (ACP) will host its next PLAYDAY at Bessie Bran­ham Park in Kirk­wood. The event–one of sev­er­al sched­uled to take place in Atlanta area parks over the course of the next sev­er­al months–will run from 10 A.M. to 4 P.M. ACP will part­ner with a num­ber of com­mu­ni­ty-based orga­ni­za­tions to offer atten­dees over 20 dif­fer­ent types of activ­i­ties in an effort to pro­mote healthy liv­ing for hap­pi­er communities.

Atlanta Con­tact­Point is a Geor­gia 501©(3) non­profit orga­ni­za­tion estab­lished in 2012 which seeks to engage chil­dren and adults through the pow­er of play. ACP’s vision is to pro­vide Atlanta’s intown com­mu­ni­ties with a state-of-the art, indoor and out­door recre­ation space where chil­dren and adults of all socio-eco­nom­ic back­grounds can come togeth­er to play and learn; the PLAYDAY series is a pre­cur­sor to the cre­ation of such a space. Over 75 orga­ni­za­tions, pri­vate busi­ness­es and notable fig­ures par­tic­i­pate in ACP’s PLAYDAY Pro­gram, among them the Atlanta Youth Soc­cer Asso­ci­a­tion (AYSA), the Atlanta Braves, Healthy Kids Geor­gia, Atlanta Belt­Line, Blaze Sports, and soc­cer star Jill Maloney.

“We start­ed our PLAYDAY pro­gram last year at Can­dler Park and more than 600 atten­dees were engaged in many sports and well­ness activ­i­ties. This is when we real­ized that our vision and inten­tion were very well received by the com­mu­ni­ty,” says David Epstein, founder of ACP. “We need more space and pro­grams intown which pro­mote con­scious liv­ing. ACP is focused on cre­at­ing ways to con­nect the dots between sports-cen­tered and social-needs based orga­ni­za­tions in Atlanta. 

PLAYDAY events empow­er indi­vid­u­als to step off-line to play and push to com­bat the grow­ing prob­lems of inac­tiv­i­ty, vir­tu­al play, and poor eat­ing habits affect­ing youth and adults today”. They also lay the ground­work for the acqui­si­tion of a site that sup­port long-term pro­grams and part­ner­ship inte­grat­ing  fit­ness, nutri­tion, the arts, envi­ron­men­tal respon­si­bil­ity and com­mu­ni­ty engage­ment.  The Atlanta Con­tact­Point facil­i­ty would serve as both a social and phys­i­cal space that sup­ports the health of Atlanta’s intown communities.

2013 PLAYDAY Pro­gram Schedule: 

Edge­wood-Coan Park–April 20, 2013 

Grant Park–May 12, 2013

Can­dler Park–Sep­tem­ber 21,2013

Old Fourth Ward Park–Octo­ber 5, 2013

Pied­mont Park–Octo­ber 19, 2013

More info at  www.atlcp.org       Media Rela­tions Page:   https://www.atlcp.org/media-relations/

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