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HEAL Grant Funds Awarded PDF Print E-mail

$450,000 in Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) Grant Funds Awarded to Four New Hampshire Community Partnerships


HEAL Projects will serve 47 cities and towns

Concord - Keene was chosen as one of four community partnerships to receive the first ever Healthy Eating Active Living (HEAL) Community Grant Program award. Each partnership will implement three-year HEAL projects aimed at decreasing obesity and improving the health and quality of life of the residents they serve.

The HEAL projects will serve a total of 47 New Hampshire cities and towns. The Caring Community Network of Twin Rivers’ (CCNTR) Healthy Heart of Life, Make the Move! project represents Franklin and 12 surrounding towns. The HEAL for Cheshire County Healthiest Community Initiative represents Keene and 22 surrounding towns. The Lakes Region Physical Activity and Nutrition Coalition represents Laconia and 8 surrounding towns. Upper Valley HEAL represents Lebanon and 5 surrounding towns.

The projects will target HEAL interventions where individuals and families live, learn, work and play. Worksites will have resources to adopt employee health promotion as an organizational value and business strategy. Parents, children and other community members will 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 will include accessible trails, parks and other outdoor recreation facilities. Physicians will learn how to help motivate and educate their patients about healthy weight and provide them with local walking guides. Restaurants will participate as community partners to offer healthy menu options to patrons. These are just a few of the many interventions targeted by the community partnerships.

In addition to funding, the community partnerships will 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.

Yvonne Goldsberry, PhD is the senior director of Community Health at Cheshire Medical Center / Dartmouth-Hitchcock Keene. She notes, “We, with the Council for a Healthier Community, are happy to sponsor the local HEAL effort. The project aligns nicely with the goals of the Vision 2020 initiative, to become the healthiest community in the nation by the year 2020. Our local project will target before- and after-school programs, worksites and the food service industry to work toward increasing access to physical activity and expanding healthy nutrition options.”

“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.”

“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 wellbeing for all New Hampshire residents. Funding 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, and NH Charitable Foundation.

HEAL is being led by the Foundation for Healthy Communities, a non-profit New Hampshire organization focused on improving health and health care through innovative partnerships.

Ongoing Community Grant Program project updates and information about HEAL’s other activities is available at www.HEALNH.org or by contacting the Foundation for Healthy Communities at (603) 225-0900.