Haley Ishimatsu of Seal Beach is one of eight Kaiser Permanente patients who have been selected to ride on the healthcare provider’s Rose Parade float on New Year’s Day.
Haley and the others were chosen to ride due to their heroic and inspiring fight against significant diseases.
According to Rosde Parade officials, “it is incredible for any person to earn a spot on the U.S. Olympic Team.
It is doubly incredible when that person suffers from asthma, a chronic lung disease that inflames and narrows the airways and for which there is no cure.”
Yet Haley, now 17, competed in the 2008 Beijing Olympics diving competitions, one of the few (perhaps only) U.S. Olympians in Beijing with asthma.”
Despite this adversity, Haley and her partner placed 5th in the women’s synchronized 10-meter platform event.
To reach the Olympics, Haley made great sacrifices, which included moving to Indianapolis, Indiana, in order to practice year-round at the national diving training facility there (her father also quit his job in Los Angeles to live with her in Indiana).
Now back in Seal Beach, Haley continues to compete, attends high school online, and is a straight A student.
The voracious reader likes listening to music and collecting rocks as hobbies. She is interested in becoming a physician. Her mother, Dr. Carol Ishimatsu, practices at Kaiser Permanente’s Downey Medical Center.
Kaiser Permanente’s playful and entertaining float consists of the children riding giant animals on a county fair-like carousel decked with wholesome fruits and vegetables.
The images and the riders aim to inspire viewers to get a 2010 healthier lifestyle ticket, requiring strength and commitment, and to jump on board a ride to better total health, a central theme of Kaiser Permanente’s ongoing “Thrive” message.
On Jan 1, turn on your TV and look for Seal Beach’s Haley Ishimatsu on the Kaiser Permanente’s Rose Parade float.
For the 121st Annual Tournament of Roses Parade, Kaiser Permanente’s fifth consecutive year of participation, the organization has entered a playful and entertaining float.
It consists of children, all courageous fighters against life-threatening diseases, riding giant animals on a county fair-like carousel decked with wholesome fruits and vegetables.
The float aims to inspire viewers to get a 2010 healthier lifestyle ticket, requiring strength and commitment, and to jump on board a ride to better total health, a central theme of Kaiser Permanente’s ongoing “Thrive” message. Leading up to the parade – which is set to begin in Pasadena on Friday, January 1, 2010, at 8 a.m. Pacific Standard Time (PST) — will be several visual and fun events.
As the magical float travels down the parade route, children will smile and wave beneath huge colorful umbrellas while each of the six ornate and oversized animals they are riding – a cat, rabbit, turkey, swan, goat, and pig — rock back-and-forth to fun music.
The eight children riding the float are young Kaiser Permanente patients, ages 11-18, each heroically fighting through significant illnesses such as cancer, sickle cell, asthma, and diabetes.
All of the young float riders have their own inspiring and magnificent stories of health.
In recommending this diverse group of incredible kids, their physicians described them as “inspirational” and “fighters,” and they praised their “determination” and “willingness to do whatever it took” to achieve better health.
If these young riders have the strength and commitment to fight for good health, so can you!
“The ticket to a healthier life is within the reach of all of us,” says Benjamin K. Chu, MD, president of Kaiser Permanente Southern California. “But a successful ride takes willpower, directed energy, and consistency.
Start 2010 right. Make a new year resolution to improve your health.
If you are like most people, you will probably choose “losing weight,” which ranks #1 in most surveys.
To eat better, exercise more, and stop smoking are other resolutions typically in the top 10.
More than 400 Kaiser Permanente employees are scheduled to decorate the float during the daily hours of 8 a.m. through 11 p.m. at Fiesta Parade Floats, located at 16016 Avenida Padilla, in Irwindale.
On decorating days, employees will volunteer their time to add the finishing touches, such as gluing thousands of fresh roses to the float. Volunteers — including physicians and young float riders — will be available for media interviews.
Kaiser Permente’s floats have won notable Rose Parade trophies in each of its four previous years of participation. In the last parade, 2009, it was honored with the Tournament Special Trophy for exceptional merit in multiple classifications.
In 2008 and 2006, Kaiser Permanente earned the Director’s Trophy for artistic merit in design and floral presentation; in 2007, it won the President’s Trophy for most effective floral use and presentation.
The Rose Parade will feature floral floats, equestrian units, and marching bands.
