2009 Community Grant Program Awards
$600,000 in Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) Grant Funds Awarded to Four New Hampshire Community Partnerships
HEAL Projects serve 47 cities and towns
Four community partnerships were selected to receive the first ever Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) Community Grant Program awards in 2009. Each partnership is in the process of implementing three-year HEAL projects aimed at decreasing obesity and improving the health and quality of life of the residents they serve.
HEAL interventions where we live, learn, work and play.
Projects are helping worksites with resources to adopt employee health promotion as an organizational value and business strategy. Parents, children and other community members ally with before- and after-school programs to provide experiences that teach children to be healthy for a lifetime. Updated city and town master plans are including accessible trails, parks and other outdoor recreation facilities. Physicians are learning how to help motivate and educate their patients about healthy weight and are providing them with local walking guides. Restaurants are participating as community partners by offering healthy menu options to patrons. These are just a few of the many interventions achieved by the community partnerships.
In addition to funding, the community partnerships receive ongoing technical assistance from the expert staff of the Foundation for Healthy Communities, which coordinates the HEAL Initiative, and its partner, the NH Department of Health and Human Services.
Bookmark this site for ongoing Community Grant Program project updates and information about HEAL's other grant opportunities.
Statewide support
"These four community partnerships are absolutely committed to promoting healthy eating and active living among the residents they serve," said HEAL Director, Terry Johnson. "Their work will begin a process of embedding HEAL in the fabric of communities throughout our state. Our personal and community health will benefit as a result."
Environment and policy changes to make healthy choices the easiest choices
"Obesity and other chronic diseases have reached alarming levels, in part, because our lifestyles rely more on cars, computers and other items that encourage sedentary behaviors," said New Hampshire First Lady, Dr. Susan Lynch. "In addition, we are constantly exposed to marketing for manufactured food products that are often convenient, but low in nutritional value. We need to create policy changes that make healthy choices the easy choices for our residents. The Community Grant Program is a first step in the HEAL Initiative's Action Plan for New Hampshire."
HEAL is supported by a collaboration of foundations and state agencies committed to promoting health and well being for all New Hampshire residents. Funding and support for the Community Grant Program and all facets of the HEAL Initiative is provided by HNHfoundation, Endowment for Health, Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare Foundation, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation, NH Charitable Foundation and Convergence Partnership Fund of Tides Foundation.
HEAL is being led by the Foundation for Healthy Communities, a non-profit New Hampshire organization focused on improving health and healthcare through innovative partnerships.
