What is Jump IN for Healthy Kids?
Jump IN is a community-wide effort to empower kids in Central Indiana to live healthier lives! Our children and their families deserve to live in healthy environments with real opportunities to make smart choices to eat healthy, play healthy and live healthy. Along with our implementation partners and alongside our programming partners, Jump IN leads the strategy and the implementation to make sustainable improvements at a systems level, focusing primarily on early care and education (ECE)across Indiana, central Indiana schools, and healthy food access across Indianapolis.
Our Mission
To create healthy places, neighborhoods, and communities where families have real opportunities to make healthy choices that promote their health, vitality and well-being, including access to affordable, healthy food and meaningful opportunities to play and be active.
A Brief History
In 2011, a group of business and civic leaders in Indianapolis began a conversation on what could be done collectively to improve the health of our community. Alarmed by the region’s poor health ranking on surveys such as the American Fitness Index, and informed by the community health needs assessments completed by our major health care systems, this group decided to focus its efforts on improving the health of children and their families. The Founding CEOs included:
- Charles Bantz, PhD, Chancellor
Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
- Len Betley, CEO
Fairbanks Foundation
- Robert Brody, CEO
Franciscan Health
- Vince Caponi, CEO
St. Vincent Health
- Eric Ellsworth, CEO
YMCA of Greater Indianapolis
- Dan Evans, CEO
Indiana University Health
- Karen Ferguson, Publisher
Indianapolis Star
- Matt Gutwein, President & CEO
Marion County Health & Hospital Corp.
- Rob Hillman, President
Anthem Blue Cross & Blue Shield, Indiana
- David Johnson, President & CEO
Central Indiana Corporate Partnership
- John Lechleiter, PhD, Chairman, President & CEO
Eli Lilly & Company
- Bryan Mills, President & CEO
Community Health Network
- Jim Morris, President
Pacers Sports & Entertainment
- Ann Murtlow, CEO
United Way of Central Indiana
- Jack Phillips, CEO
Roche Diagnostics Corp.
- Clay Robbins, President
Lilly Endowment
Based on research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Founding CEOs agreed to create and fund a multi-year collective impact initiative targeting childhood obesity. Jump IN for Healthy Kids formally launched in January 2014 as the backbone organization of that initiative.
Throughout 2014 and into early 2015, Jump IN engaged more than 100 representatives from 85 businesses and civic organizations in several task forces. Our task forces have grown into strategy teams. Learn more about them here.
We wanted to understand what strategies and programs were already in place in our community and what gaps/barriers existed. These task forces developed a comprehensive set of interventions around nutrition and physical activity that we began implementing in the fall of 2015 as strategies for Healthy Places, Healthy Neighborhoods, and Healthy Communities. Over time, Jump IN's strategies have evolved and 2020, Jump IN reimgined itself as Jump IN 2.0 with two specific areas of focus: Changing the Systems (early care and education, schools, and food access) and Building the Culture (worksite wellness, youth serving organizations, clinical systems, neighborhoods, and the public) with supporting resources (communications, evaluations, and policy).