Newsletter- November 2016

A Houston/Harris County Childhood Obesity Prevention Collaborative

November 2016 / Issue No. 48

In This Issue

HLM Fall Collaborative Meeting

Southern Obesity Summit 2016

CLARA Farm Sustainability Plan for Social Impact - Pasadena

Featured Resource

Texas Obesity News

National Obesity News

Research & Reports

Upcoming Events

Contact us: Phone: 713-439-6118
Email: [email protected] Website: www.healthylivingmatters.net

HLM Fall Collaborative Meeting

In late October, HLM hosted our Fall 2016 Collaborative Meeting. The meeting's theme was "Advocacy and the 2017 Legislative Session" with the primary focus being the importance of effective advocacy and communication to legislators.

HLM was happy to accept Senator Rodney Ellis as our keynote speaker for the event. Senator Ellis challenged HLM members to create an impact in the community by designing and communicating their advocacy message using new approaches.

Senator Ellis stressed the importance of timing during advocacy campaigns and devising strategies to propel impact and how social media is an effective tool used to amplify advocacy efforts and spur dialogue about social issues.

Senator Rodney Ellis speaking on the importance of advocacy.

We would also like to thank our amazing guest speakers Shelby Massey (Texas Government Relations Director, American Heart Association), Joel Romo (Texas Public Affairs) and Tim Schauer (Cornerstone Government Affairs). These speakers covered the importance of contacting your locally elected official and how to best engage in order to create influential change.

Click here for a copy of the highlights of our meeting.

Southern Obesity Summit

This year's summit was held in Houston, Texas from November 13 - 15; the summit's planning committee featured key partners in HLM. The Southern Obesity Summit is the largest regional obesity prevention event in the United States, drawing hundreds of participants from the 16 Southern States consisting of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.

HLM would like to thank Dr. Umair Shah, Executive Director of Harris County Public Health (HCPH) for featuring HLM as a prominent obesity reduction and prevention initiative in Harris County in the summit's opening session; Katie Chennisi, Public Health Analyst at HCPH, for speaking at a breakout session about HLM's efforts in Pasadena around food access; and Elizabeth Love, Senior Program Officer of Houston Endowment for mentioning HLM's positive impact in the Great Houston Area during a funder panel.

CLARA Farm Sustainability Plan for Social Impact - Pasadena

Healthy Living Matters is proud to announce the CLARA Farm Sustainability Plan for Social Impact. This plan was created to guide the development of the CLARA Farm to ensure it has a long-term positive social impact in north Pasadena, Texas, as part of the Harris County BUILD Health Partnership (BUILD Health).

CLARA will include two production sites - an indoor farm and research facility and a school-based greenhouse. The multiple sites and multiple growing methods ensure a higher volume and wider variety of produce to better meet the needs of the north Pasadena community. Current BUILD Health programs distribute 670,000 pounds of produce to, at minimum, 2,000 food-insecure people and families living in north Pasadena. Production facilities are being designed to provide a sustainable source of produce for those distribution programs.

The CLARA Farm and the local food system is developing and testing a community, non-profit, public, and private partnership model that has leveraged resources from multiple sectors to create a self-sustaining system that will have a positive social impact in north Pasadena for years to come.

Harris County Public Health and all the BUILD Health partners thank the Build Healthy Places Network for the Joining Forces Planning Grant which funded this plan.

New Healthy Retail Resource

Health advocates around the nation are seeing the importance of partnering with food retailers to improve the health of individuals and communities.

The Public Health Institutes Center for Wellness and Nutrition is a national leader in developing campaigns, programs and partnerships to reduce obesity and promote equity in the most vulnerable communities across the country. Through education, engagement, environmental changes and policies, we work to make health accessible for all.

The Center for Wellness and Nutrition has extensive experience promoting health through retailers. Our team developed the country's largest healthy retail program with the California Department of Public Health and partnered with more than 800 stores to help influence shoppers' purchases of healthy foods and beverages.

To learn more about the Center for Wellness and Nutrition follow this link or contact [email protected] | (916) 265-4042