Healthy Eating and Active Living Mini-Grants Awarded to Cambridge Organizations

The Cambridge Public Health Department, through its Cambridge in Motion campaign, has awarded a total of $5,000 in mini-grants to ten local organizations to develop activities that promote healthy eating and active living.

“We recognize that it has been a very challenging year, and we are happy to support our local organizations who are still making healthy eating and active living activities possible in our current unpredictable environment,” said Dawn Olcott, MS, Manager of Public Health Nutrition Services for the Cambridge Public Health Department.

Healthy eating and active living is one of the city’s health priority areas.

The 2020 mini-grant awardees and their projects are:

• Community Charter School of Cambridge. Students at the charter school and select classrooms from the Morse and Tobin schools will grow and harvest carrots that will culminate in a “Carrot Day” celebration. Partners include Hurley Street Neighborhood Farm, CitySprouts, and East End House.
• Cambridge Community Center. Cambridge Winter Farmers Market will hire four high school students from the Riverside neighborhood to help with weekly recycling/composting, assist vendors, and learn about local farm products. The students will also receive a weekly box of food to take home.
• Cambridge Community Development Department will create a Healthy Aging Cycling Readiness Program for older adults through spin classes and exercises for strength building, courses on bike riding and maintenance, and organized group ride.
• Cambridge Emergency Communications Department. Recognizing that emergency communicators are critical to us all, and have a stressful and sedentary job, the city’s Emergency Communications Department is building a new series of monthly personal challenges and free fitness classes to encourage staff to eat healthy and keep active.
• Community Charter School of Cambridge Skateboard Club will organize trips to the Lynch Family Skatepark where they will plan a park clean-up day, as well as purchase healthy snacks and a portable skateboard ramp for less experienced club members to practice skills.
• Green Cambridge, Inc.
• The Hurley Street Neighborhood Farm, a communal neighborhood farming initiative established in 2017, will create model sanitary practices for shared garden spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic by installing a hand and produce washing station, developing garden safety protocols, and producing a series of online videos.
• Haggerty Elementary School will install a permanent sensory pathway on the kindergarten/first grade floor, and expand the pathway to other floors. Students will engage in a set of motor activities that ready the brain and body for learning.
• Living Well Network will create a pilot project to introduce adults 55+ to a variety of movement and wellness activities with peer support, including modified parkour, social walking, yoga, tai chi, and meditation.
• Transition House will start an employee wellness program with the Cambridge YMCA that will support staff in meeting their health goals.
  YWCA Cambridge will offer six free yoga classes over the summer. Classes will feature healthy snacks and modified instruction for those with disabilities.
• The 2020 mini-grants are funded by the Cambridge Public Health Department. Since 2012, over 46 organizations have been funded to promote healthy eating and active living in Cambridge.
• The mini-grant program is a partnership of the Cambridge Public Health Department, the Cambridge Food and Fitness Policy Council, and the City of Cambridge.
  
  For more information, contact Dawn Olcott at the Cambridge Public Health Department, dolcott@challiance.org or 617-665-3809.