Dallas, Texas—The Dallas Cowboys Rookie Club teamed up with volunteers from UnitedHealthcare Tuesday to celebrate an early "Healthy Halloween" with preschoolers from the Martin Luther King, Jr. ChildCareGroup Center in Dallas.
The rookies and volunteers, as well as Cowboys mascot "Rowdy," tag-teamed eight classrooms of children, ages 3 to 5. The players read aloud the book It's a Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown before decorating pumpkins of their own—miniature ones for the kids and a large one for each player adorned with stickers, glitter and doodles for the classrooms to keep. (Special thanks to Albertson's for generously donating the many pumpkins.)
Players also distributed goodie bags full of healthy snacks, teaching the little ones that Halloween can be fun without all the candy and sugar. All was in the spirit of tackling childhood obesity and making the next generation of youth healthy and active, a goal the Dallas Cowboys and UnitedHealthcare share and continuously work towards through a number of programs and initiatives.
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Center is one of seven ChildCareGroup child development centers. ChildCareGroup is a nonprofit United Way partner dedicated to providing quality child care for low-income families. Most of the children at Tuesday's event come from families earning below the poverty level. (Learn more about how ChildCareGroup serves the DFW community here: http://www.childcaregroup.org/index.html.)
The visit to ChildCareGroup is one of several appearances the 2012 Dallas Cowboys Rookie Club is scheduled to make this season. The Rookie Club is an annual outreach initiative intended to teach the newest Cowboys the importance of giving back to the North Texas community. This year's group is proudly presented by UnitedHealthcare.
