About Karen Voght

On Thursday 31st March 2016 WomenExplore was privileged to hear a "panel discussion" presented by Karen Voght, Founder/CEO Wellness, Inc., MA/WA,  Global Health Through the ABCs www.alphabetfitness.org on the topic of "The Body in Motion", a part of the Spring 2016 lecture series on the theme "Caring for Ourselves... Caring for the World...  Creating a Healthy and Meaningful Life from the Inside Out".

Karen Voght is a Long Island - raised child; transplanted to W. Hartford, CT for her adolescence; a Graduate of Psychology; and the co-author of the original Child-care Licensing Laws for the State of CT, Maternal & Child Health Care Div.  She became a successful entrepreneurial Real Estate developer in Wrentham, MA while raising 2 very entertaining children; and has spent the last portion of her life applying her love of research and innovation to generating stress prevention tools for young children to help them grow up healthy, happy and well.  She became the founder/CEO of Wellness, Inc., and her creative tool of choice became the alphabet! 

         Karen had done a large amount of testing her program's concept developments with inner city YMCA preschool programs - primarily Hispanic 4-5 year olds - and discovered that many inner city impoverished areas did not have the wherewithall to expose their children to the potential for wonderful imagination, so she set out to find possible causes. Those causes narrowed down to an excess of life stressors within families and communities;  lack of natural play and active body movement due to unsafe neighborhoods;  and lack of healthy adult role models (parents and educators).

         Being aware of the imagination's need for rich sensory stimulations and fully cross-lateralized body movements Karen set out to redesign the 26 letters of the alphabet (a learning tool learned by all children) into Alphabet Fitness Fonts to activate children's bodies while they were learning the fundamentals of alphabet communication skills!  Her typable font character would become the children's literacy and fitness coaches.  Chimp Shakespeare's ABCs taught the 3-4 yr. olds alphabet yoga-like workouts, and Akiddo Kids font taught body language communication to the older children.  Miss Spells was saved for smaller groups of just girls (like in the Democratic Republic of Congo's all-girls school)  She even designed the first Alphabet Fitness Puzzles with her Chimp fonts for Chimp Sanctuary fundraisers, and a special Miss Spells' Boston Herald Puzzle edition for literacy..  Please feel free to find tons more at the Alphabet Fitness website: www.alphabetfitness.org.  Many free downloads are there for you, your children and grandchildren to exercise their bodies along with their classmates and playmates; brothers, sisters, and cousins; parents, grandparents, and educators too!

         As Karen is concerned about corporate profiteering on the future of our children’s wellbeing, she'd like to EXPLORE the topic of her talk today: "JUST WHO IS MOVING OUR LIPS, HIPS, AND FINGERTIPS IN THE DIGITAL AGE?"!