Lambda Pi Chi Sorority and Nickelodeon Partner To Celebrate Worldwide Day Of Play

Latinas Promoviendo Comunidad / Lambda Pi Chi Sorority, Inc., the first Latina-focused sorority founded at an Ivy League institution, will join forces with Nickelodeon to bring its 8^th Annual Worldwide Day of Play celebration to New York City on September 24, 2011.

Nickelodeon’s Worldwide Day of Play is an entire day dedicated to active play. On this day, Nickelodeon goes completely "dark” for three hours by turning off programming to encourage kids to get up, get outdoors, and be active. Every year, Worldwide Day of Play is celebrated with more than 3,500 local events in all 50 states and in 13 countries.

"We are very excited to participate in this year’s Worldwide Day of Play.  As a national organization that is dedicated to serving the community, it is extremely important to be part of the solution in an issue affecting our youth today, and we couldn’t think of a better way to combat childhood obesity and directly impact the kids in our community,” said Maria L. Diaz, National President of Lambda Pi Chi Sorority, Inc. "Childhood obesity has become an epidemic in this country, especially in the Latino community.  It is essential that we contribute to this cause, to our community, and to our youth,” she added.

According to Leadership for Healthy Communities, a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, overweight and obese children are more likely to suffer from serious, lifelong illnesses than their healthy-weight peers, and Latino children and adolescents are at greater risk of overweight and obesity than their white or African-American peers. Currently, 38.2 percent of Latino children ages 2 to 19 are overweight or obese, compared with 31.7 percent of all children those ages.

Lambda Pi Chi Sorority’s Worldwide Day of Play event on September 24th will serve to get New York City kids active while having fun and supporting Nickelodeon’s message that outdoor play is important!  The event will take place at Riverside Park from 11:00 am - 6:00 pm and will include a variety of activities, such as "Zumba for Kids" with certified Zumba instructor Marysol Villanueva, "Dancing with the NST" with members of Lambda Pi Chi's three-time championship National Strolling Team, and "Playing with LPC" with members of Lambda Pi Chi representing various chapters across the country.