On the day she died, Megan Charlop was riding her bicycle to PS 55 in Claremont, on her way to the elementary school’s summer camp fair.

The event was one of many projects Charlop spearheaded as the director of Community Health at Montefiore Medical Center’s School Health Program, and one close to her heart, her colleagues say—part of an effort to set local children up with free or low-cost camp programs.

“She was extremely enthusiastic about the summer camp campaign,” said coworker Laura Messing. “She’d be bouncing off the walls, ready to talk to anyone and everyone about it.”

But Charlop never made it to PS 55 that day: she was struck and killed by a city bus as she biked there along Crotona Avenue, after she’d swerved to avoid an opening car door.

Charlop’s sudden death, at the age of 57, dealt a devastating blow to those who knew her. Her death also left a gaping hole in the public health community, which lost one of its fiercest advocates that day, one who had pioneered and fought to maintain countless programs and projects in the Bronx and across the city.

“What are we going to do?” Dr. David Appel, director of the School Health program, recalled his grieving staff asking one another in the days following Charlop’s death. “It was both the energy to keep the programs going, but also that Megan was the glue that kept everybody going.”

Charlop, a longtime Norwood resident, had spent her decades-long career fighting to improve the health and well-being of Bronx residents, tackling everything from lead poisoning to childhood obesity to teaching children to ride bicycles—her preferred mode of transportation.

“She was like an octopus,” said colleague Cymetra Williams. “She had a hand in so many things.”

Her coworkers say they’ve spent the last year determined to see all of Charlop’s beloved projects stay afloat, and that she would be proud of how so many of them have grown and flourished.

“There’s multiple ways that she continues to influence the work that’s being done,” said Jane Lima, a community organizer who Charlop hired back in 2005.

Her idea to incorporate fitness and movement into everyday classroom lessons as a tactic to fight childhood obesity has been expanded into the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore’s CHAM JAM project, a series of short audio CDs that teachers can play during class that combine simple exercises with their regular curriculum. Last year, the National Institutes of Health awarded a $1.22 million grant to expand the program to reach some 16,000 schoolchildren in the Bronx.

Another of Charlop’s projects, called the Family Adventure Program, organizes trips and activities for kids and parents to take on weekends in an effort to keep them healthy, active and off the couch. The program grew this year to include six different schools in the borough.

“What initially started as one small, single school program has expanded into six kinds of all-encompassing programs that continue to be refined and improved,” said Messing, who helps run the project.

“The foundation that Meg left us with, it really enabled us to go bigger and better.”

One of Charlop’s top priorities was to improve the quality and nutrition of food that’s served in school lunches. She organized a coalition of local groups in a campaign to get schools to stop serving high-calorie whole and sweetened milk, an effort that led to a citywide policy change that requires schools to offer only low-fat milk.

Her vision was validated even further after several Bronx school districts recently decided to stop serving chocolate milk altogether.

A look around the Bronx yields countless other reminders of Charlop’s dedication: children’s playstreets, farmers markets and several flourishing school gardens which she had a hand in, to name a few.

“There’s something really special about seeing her work continue, and it’s been an amazing year to see her being recognized,” said Charlop’s oldest daughter, Sarah Charlop-Powers. “I think to say that she would be humbled by it would be almost an understatement.”

PS 55, the school where Charlop was headed to the day she died, will dedicate its garden in her name this year.

A longtime friend and colleague, Roger Hayes, said one of Charlop’s gifts was being able to bridge the two worlds of advocacy and activism.

“I think her uniqueness was her ability to do very good, local grassroots work, as well as work in the policy arena,” said Hayes, a city Health Department official. “She was comfortable at both, and she was good at both.”

But perhaps the most influential thing about Charlop was her spirit, her coworkers say, one that they describe as loving, fearless, and always optimistic.

In any given situation, Williams said, she’ll find herself asking: What would Megan do?

“It was one of the things that made her legacy so powerful, and so lasting,” said Margaret Rogers, a training and education coordinator at the School Health Program.

“It wasn’t just, ‘Let’s do something fun with the kids,’ but ‘Let’s change the world,’” she remembered. “Let’s change the world that the kids live in.”

“There was something extra about her,” Appel seconded. “She made an enormous effort, every second.”

Ed. Note: Charlop’s family has created a scholarship at Hunter College School of Public Health to support a student who has demonstrated a commitment to community health. Donations may be addressed to the Hunter College Foundation with “Megan Charlop Scholarship Fund” in the subject line and checks can be mailed to: The Hunter College Foundation, 695 Park Ave., Room 1313E, New York, NY 10065.

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.