Written by APIFM interns, Charlene Mendoza and Trang Luong
On Saturday, March 24, we were invited to the launch of WAPOW Magazine at the Los Angeles State Historic Park (LASHP). WAPOW Magazine is a new free, bilingual publication that focuses on news and culture in Los Angeles Chinatown for its community.
At their magazine launch, we hosted our Rethink Your Drink table in which we encouraged the guests to drink healthier options. We met some new faces and welcomed familiar faces who usually attend the Healthy Eating and Active Living (HEAL) Tuesday (LASHP) and Wednesday (Chinatown Service Center) classes from 10am – 11:30am. At our table, we offered water infused with strawberries, kiwis, and cucumbers. We also provided recipes for healthier drink options, brochures about the organization, and nutritional facts on common sugary drinks.
We also had a poster board as a visual as part of our Rethink Your Drink campaign for the guests that attended the event. We wanted guests to have an idea of how much sugar is in a drink by providing visuals of teaspoons of sugar (4 grams of sugar equal to 1 teaspoon), so we had a poster that displayed how much sugar is in common sugary drinks and asked people to guess how many teaspoons is in each drink. Then, we had visual under each drink to show about how many minutes of exercise should they be doing after certain amounts of sugar consumed. For example, a can of soda contain about 40 grams of sugar, and if we divided by 4, that would contain about 10 teaspoons of sugars. Then it is suggested that they should do about 33 minutes of walking/light exercise to burn off that sugar.
On top of our Rethink Your Drink table and materials, LASHP Park Ranger Kya-Marina Le led a tour around the park and shared the history of the park, how the park is rebuilding the local ecosystem, and how it is engaging within the Chinatown community. The launch also introduced an artist, Sara Chao who made “Edition Popcorn” in honor of the event. Sara’s popcorn was influenced by her Chinese roots and was a yummy treat for the guests.
It was a fun event and we hope to see the new faces we met at our classes!
About Trang and Charlene
Trang is a student at California State University, Los Angeles majoring in Public Health with a focus in Community Health. She is from Los Angeles and she’s doing her internship with Asian Pacific Islander Forward Movement, supporting a number of healthy eating and active living workshops every week. She enjoys interacting and involving with the community members of Los Angeles and hopes to gain more experience in nonprofit work.
Charlene Mendoza is currently in her last year at CSULA, majoring in Public Health with a focus in Community Health. She resides in Duarte, home of the City of Hope hospital and research center. Due to her volunteer work at two local San Gabriel Valley hospitals, she encountered many people with various health ailments and she knew she wanted to make a difference. Charlene believes she can prevent the influx of patients coming into the hospital by being a Public Health advocate and promoting healthy lifestyles to those greatly affected. She knows she can take on this issue by reaching out to the communities and making a difference with the lives in the communities. During her free time, she enjoys going to the beach, attending concerts, spending time with her family, and going on adventures to new places. After finishing her B.S. in Public Health, Charlene hopes to further on her education with a Masters in Public Health to focus her studies towards Global Health and help developing countries live healthier lifestyles and prevent the growth of non-communicable diseases.
