As part of his health initiative efforts, Borough President James Oddo has kicked off a “Fizz Free February” campaign on social media. The initiative is designed to educate the public about the realities of sugar, especially in soda and sugar sweetened beverages. Given the severity in the overall health statistics of Staten Islanders, Borough President Oddo feels that it is important to bring attention to health education and positive lifestyle changes, beginning with the importance of cutting sugar in your diet.
 
The campaign will take place over the month of February. Each Friday on Borough Hall’s Staten Island USA social media accounts, a post will highlight the realities of how sugar affects the way our bodies function as well as the overall state of our health.
 
Statistics show that in this country, sugar sweetened beverages are the largest source of added sugar to a person’s diet. Increased sugar consumption has been shown to lead to obesity, which dramatically increases the risk of diabetes and heart disease.
 
The public will be encouraged to put down their soda and sugar sweetened beverages, and to instead consume only sugar-free beverages, such as water, seltzer, or unsweetened iced tea. Examples of sugar sweetened beverages include regular soda, diet soda, sweetened tea, sweetened coffee, fruit drinks, sports drinks, and energy drinks.
 
“By educating Staten Islanders about the dangers of sugary drinks, we can help them make informed decisions about their health,” noted Borough President Oddo. “We’ve encouraged the participants to get creative in educating their peers about the negative effects of these beverages, which we hope will inspire them to eventually ‘kick the can’ for good.”
 
Borough President Oddo is excited to see Staten Islanders “Fizz Free February” sugar-free drink options. Tag our social media accounts with photos of friends, family, coworkers, or classmates drinking healthy alternatives to soda and sugary drinks and we will repost them.

​On Friday, February 8th, BP Oddo kicked off this year's "Readers Are Leaders" 4th grade reading challenge at a ceremony at P.S. 35. The Readers Are Leaders Program challenges 4th grade classes in Staten Island's schools to read a minimum of six books at or above grade level during the five-week period of February 18th through March 25th. One "exceptional" reader will be chosen from each school to be recognized at a ceremony in May. Since its inception in 1996, 4th graders have read more than 690,000 books for the annual challenge.
 
In addition, we have added a new component to the challenge this year. As a partner program and expansion of the successful Readers Are Leaders, Borough President Oddo also kicked off a new “Readers Are Leaders Jr.” program, challenging 1st graders to read “Mikey and the Dragons” by NYT bestselling author and former Navy SEAL Jocko Willink, along with one book of their choice. This program will run concurrent to the fourth grade program.
 
At the kickoff, students from P.S. 35 got to see a magic show performed by our friend Magician Mike Lane. As an added bonus to the challenge, any student who reads Mike's book series, "The Magic Shop," and writes a book report about one of the books will be considered for a special prize.
 
Students who participate in the 1st grade “Readers Are Leaders Jr.” challenge will be required to read " Mikey and the Dragons " by Jocko Willink. The Borough President's office distributed over 1,500 copies to participating schools throughout the borough.
 
“While you guys are all reading your 6 books, I am going to do my part and read a little for me. I am blessed to work with people at Borough Hall who also love to read. We got together to think about how we could make this program even better. So we decided to expand ‘Readers Are Leaders’ to the 1st grade with a ‘Readers Are Leaders Jr.’,” said Borough President Oddo. 

​Yesterday, Borough President James Oddo joined with the Consortium for Affordable Medical Technologies (CAMTech) at Massachusetts General Hospital, the State of New York, Northwell Health, Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, and Columbia University’s Fu Foundation School of Engineering to host Demo Day, the last leg of the Empire State Opioid Epidemic Innovation Challenge at Columbia University.
 
As part of Demo Day, six teams—composed of engineers, data experts, social workers, clinicians, and other professionals—competed in front of a cross-disciplinary panel of expert judges for a grand prize of $10,000 and six months of acceleration support through the CAMTech Accelerator Program (CAP) for their innovation.
 
The winner was Team Quick Reversal for their innovation of a nasal patch that dispenses Narcan to prevent opioid overdose. The runner up was Team Recover-We for their innovation of a search engine chat platform to link individuals to local prevention, treatment, and opioid recovery programs.
 
“The goal of this Empire State Opioid Epidemic Innovation Challenge was to have talented individuals work together to create solutions to address the local and national opioid crisis,” said Borough President James Oddo. “I’m pleased to see we have accomplished this goal. It’s a pleasure to do such important work with the Governor’s Office, NYS OASAS, Northwell Health, Columbia University’s Public Health and Engineering Schools, and CAMTech. I am looking forward to applying the best and most creative solutions from Demo Day to address the opioid epidemic on Staten Island.”
 
The Empire State Opioid Epidemic Innovation Challenge served as an open-innovation platform for a diverse community to co-create solutions that would have the potential to change the trajectory of the local and national opioid crisis. The idea for the challenge came from the BP’s Policy Team, who learned about a successful opioid “Hack-A-Thon” hosted by CAMTech in Boston in 2016. The Borough President’s office reached out to CAMTech and collaborated with them to create a similar event in New York City.
 
Demo Day served as a competition for teams to show progress made 90 days after first formulating their solutions at the Challenge Summit and Solutions Sprint in September 2018. All 12 teams that formed during the Solutions Sprint were eligible to compete at Demo Day.
 
At the Solutions Sprint, four teams received seed funding and three months of acceleration support leading up to Demo Day: Team Random Access Network (RAN) with the innovation to link individuals with certified peer advocates to meet patients at hospitals and treatment recovery centers; Team Recover-We for innovating a search engine chat to link individuals with prevention, treatment, and opioid recovery programs; Team Quick Reversal for innovating a nasal patch that dispenses Narcan to prevent opioid overdose; and Team Addiction Recovery Kit (ARK) for innovating a kit that aggregates existing prevention, treatment, and recovery tools for hospitals, needle exchanges, detox centers, and rehab facilities.