Health and Wellness

Mar Vista Family Center (MVFC) believes that maintaining healthy families and a healthy community are critical to achieving our mission. Our health and wellness activities are fully integrated, culturally fluent, and tailored to all ages to engage and strengthen the entire family. The program’s goal is to promote healthy lifestyles in the community by providing information on important health topics, giving community members the tools to eat better and providing ways to increase daily exercise. Through working with multiple partners, fundraisers, and volunteers, MVFC engages over 1,000 community members in a variety of health and wellness activities throughout the year.

Community Garden

In the Center’s Community Garden, families plant, grow, and harvest vegetables and herbs for use in their meals at home, and they come together once a month to share a meal with the community prepared with the fresh produce they have grown. Gardening has proven to be a great bonding and stress-relieving activity that engages the entire family.

Healthy Cooking Classes

The Center works with local chefs and supermarkets to offer an ongoing series of bilingual healthy cooking classes for children, teens, parents, and senior citizens. In these classes, participants are exposed to healthy foods such as leafy greens and whole grains, and healthy cooking methods such as steaming and roasting.
Hands-on Preschool Nutrition & Education

Parents at MVFC learn new recipes and put them to use every day in the Preschool Program. In addition, parents are trained on the nutritional, portion size, and developmental needs of children in order serve as health ambassadors in the community and start healthy eating habits early.

Zumba, Yoga, Aerobics, and More

MVFC offers a variety of facilities and activities to keep everyone in the family active on a regular basis. In addition to zumba, yoga, and aerobics classes held at the Center, community members also use our on-site gym, jog on the Ballona Creek path, and participate in after-school sports programs.

Additional health and wellness activities include: bilingual health information sessions, preteen cooking and recreation, the community café, the summer camp hot-meal program, the food pantry program, the health and wellness festival, and more.