Growing Up Healthy is hiring!
Growing Up Healthy is currently accepting applications for two part-time Neighborhood Organizer positions (one Spanish-speaking and one Somali-speaking).
More information on the open positions and position descriptions can also be found here:
Questions? Contact Growing Up Healthy at Leah@growinguphealthy.org.
Growing Up Healthy receives Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation grant
News Release
Contacts:
Leah Eby, Growing Up Healthy
(507) 664-3527, Leah@growinguphealthy.org
Julie Ann Eastling, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation
(651) 662-6574, Julie_A_Eastling@bluecrossmn.com
Growing Up Healthy awarded grant through the Blue Cross Foundation
Grant helps create greater health equity in the community
NORTHFIELD, Minn. (July 7, 2015) — Growing Up Healthy received a $59,500 grant from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation to help more community members reach their full health potential. The funds will be used to continue Growing Up Healthy’s social capital development work in five low-income neighborhoods in Rice County. The work will empower groups of leaders from historically marginalized communities to better advocate for their peers and foster important connections both within and beyond their neighborhoods.
Growing Up Healthy is a program under the organizational umbrella of the Northfield Healthy Community Initiative (HCI) and works in close partnership with Rice County’s largest social service, educational, and health organizations.
The Growing Up Healthy grant is one of 24 awarded across the state through the Foundation’s “Healthy Communities: Health Equity in Action” initiative. The projects all focus on one or more of the following social or economic factors that have a great influence on health: education, employment, income, family and social support or community safety. A total of $1.5 million was awarded.
“We’re pleased to support the great work of Growing Up Healthy — a community asset that is truly making a difference in helping people have better options for good health,” said Foundation Executive Director Carolyn Link. “Growing Up Healthy demonstrates a commitment to broadening the way we look at health.”
“This grant from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation allows Growing Up Healthy to continue the powerful work it is doing in neighborhoods in Northfield and Faribault,” said Erin Bailey, Community Services Director for Northfield Public Schools and Growing Up Healthy Advisory Board co-chair. “The Northfield Public Schools is excited to continue to be a Growing Up Healthy partner as they support children and families in Rice County.”
For more information on Blue Cross’ grantmaking programs, visit bcbsmnfoundation.org or call (651) 662-3950 or toll free at 1-866-812-1593.
Growing Up Healthy works with partner organizations and immigrant and refugee families to transform communities through cultivating neighborhood leadership, fostering community connectedness, and collectively advocating for change in neighborhoods and systems.
The Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation exclusively dedicates its assets to improving health in Minnesota, awarding nearly $41.5 million since it was established in 1986. The Foundation’s purpose is to make a healthy difference in communities by advancing health equity and improving the conditions where people live, learn, work and play.
Northfield News: Farmer to Family Program
Carleton College student looks to tackle food barriers in Rice County
By BRAD PHENOW
Low-income families now have access to local produce at a reduced price, thanks to a Carleton College student who teamed up with Growing Up Healthy to help break down the barriers of food access.The Farmer to Family program was developed by a Carleton College senior, Tori Ostenso, who has spent the summer focusing on breaking down food access issues in Rice County, including cost, transportation and nutrition education.Ostenso, who is from Ladysmith, Wisconsin, received a Phillips Scholarship which not only helped with tuition costs but supplied additional funds for the Family to Farmer program. One of the requirements for the scholarship was designing a summer project that worked toward a community need.
It didn’t take Ostenso long to decide where she wanted to use the funds, as she was already familiar with local farmers and had a strong interest in food access issues. She has been involved with several agriculture groups on Carleton’s campus including the Carleton organic farm, the gleaning program and FireBellies cooking club.
As part of the gleaning program, members visit local farms to gather produce, after which they donate it to the food shelf. With the FireBellies cooking club, a group of Carleton students go to the middle school and give cooking demonstrations. Thanks to these different organizations, deciding on a summer project was simple for Ostenso, with help from Growing Up Healthy.
“I noticed most of the people who are getting the local produce in Rice County were the upper-class people who could afford it,” she said.
After getting in touch with the coordinator at Growing Up Healthy, Ostenso discovered there were already events planned for low-income neighborhoods in Rice County.
Growing Up Healthy Coordinator Leah Eby said she and Ostenso went out and talked with neighborhood leaders to identify a community need in those neighborhoods.
After talking with neighborhood leaders, and determining cost and transportation being two of the barriers, Ostenso decided to make an effort to bring local produce to low-income families at an affordable price.
“They had already established some communities, and had planned to do these events in the park,” she said. “So we hooked up with them and now we attend all those events and set up the vegetable market.”
To add a little more fun to these events and to tackle the third barrier, she decided to educate the community members by providing healthy cooking demonstration. Ostenso said with the help from another FireBellies cooking club member, Emily Pence, they were able to bring the kitchen to these communities.
“The kids and the moms are really taking a liking to these cooking demos,” Ostenso said.
Eby said the cooking demonstrations have become the main attraction.
“Some people are wary to buy a whole bag of vegetables if they aren’t familiar with how to cook them,” Eby said. “But they (Ostenso and Pence) find a way to relate it to both the parents and the kids.”
Ostenso said at the beginning of the summer things were slow, so she reached out to Becca Carlson at Seeds Farm, who grows the vegetables. Carlson reassured Ostenso that it took time when she first began selling vegetables, too.
You have to be patient, Ostenso said she remembers hearing.
Now, Ostenso said she is selling between 10 and 20 bags of local produce at each event.
“We sell them for $5, and the customers get to pick what they want to put in the bag,” she said. “Each week more people are starting to come.”
Looking back, Ostenso said it’s incredible how an idea she had in her head turned out the way it did.
“I think the best part is when the moms come over as every one is getting ready to leave. They are so thankful for us coming to their neighborhood,” she said.
Eby added that the event has had such a positive impact on the neighborhoods that she plans to continue offering the vegetable market after Ostenso’s project is completed.
“Even though our events in the park days will end in August, we are talking about ways to continue Farmer to Family into the fall,” she said. “And definitely in future summers.”
Eby added that students and community members who are excited about breaking food access barriers help make these event possible. If you wish to help out in the future, contact Growing Up Healthy at 507-664-3527.
Brad Phenow covers Rice County government, townships and arts & entertainment. Reach him in Faribault at 333-3135 and in Northfield at 645-1122.
Join us this summer for neighborhood gatherings!
During the summer, Growing Up Healthy hosts weekly neighborhood programming designed to offer residents of our target neighborhoods the opportunity to spend time outside in a semi-structured but informal setting, creating opportunities for residents to get to know or deepen relationships with one another and with community organizations and resources.
These events will be 6:30-8pm every Monday (Faribault) and Tuesday (Northfield) throughout the summer.
- Mondays in the Park: Gathering with Somali women and children at the playground behind Faribault Middle School (June 2 – June 23).
- Lunes en el Vecindario: Gathering with families from the Evergreen Estates Mobile Home Park in Faribault at the community garden in the lawn behind the manager’s office (July 14 – August 25).
- Martes en el Parque: Gathering with families from the Viking Terrace neighborhood at Dresden Hill Park in Northfield (June 3, June 17, July 1, July 15, July 29, August 5, August 19).
- Tuesdays in the Park: Gathering with families from the Jefferson Square neighborhood at Jefferson Park in Northfield (June 10, June 24, July 8, July 22, August 12, August 26).
We’ll provide snacks, games and activities for kids, and each week we’ll have a visitor from a community group or organization with activities or resources for families. These include: a Rice County Public Health nurse (with wellness activities and nutrition info), a dental hygienist (with toothbrushes and demonstrations), Booker (the Northfield Public Library book-mobile), a mobile farmers market stand (with cooking demonstrations and healthy eating tips), and much, much more!
Would you like to volunteer to run games or activities for kids? Contact Leah at leah@growinguphealthy.org or 507-664-3527.
We hope to see you this summer!
Farmer to Family Program
Farmer to Family Program
Connecting low-income families with local produce in Rice County
This summer Tori Ostenso, a student at Carleton College, will be working with Growing Up Healthy on a project to combat food access. Since coming to Carleton, Tori has learned how to grow food, made many connections with local producers, and experienced the bounty of harvest season in Rice County. She wanted to share these local food resources with low-income people and address food access issues from a nutrition education and community-building perspective. She was awarded the Phillips Scholarship to support her pursuit during the summer of 2014. She has been working with Growing Up Healthy, the Carleton Center for Community and Civic Engagement, Rice County Public Health, the Just-Food Co-op, and SEEDs farm to design the Farmer to Family Program. This program seeks to address 3 major barriers of food access — cost, transportation, and nutrition education — by providing local produce for low-income families at a reduced price and providing cooking and nutrition lessons to teach families simple ways to introduce local produce into their meals. Food is such an amazing tool for bringing communities together and connecting people with their surroundings. By connecting these families to their local food shed, this program will help them to foster a stronger sense of belonging in this community as well.
Program description:
What? A project to overcome the main barriers of food access – cost, transportation, and nutrition education – and bring more fresh, local produce to low-income families in Northfield and Faribault this summer.
How? Weekly mobile market vegetable stands that sell produce from local farmers to low-income families at a reduced price and supplemental nutrition classes and cooking demos to demonstrate why and how to supplement your diet with fresh, local vegetables.
When? Harvest season 2014.
Support the Project! 100% of the money raised will be spent purchasing produce from local farmers and providing it to low-income families in Rice County.
Round up your dollar at the Just Food Co-op during the month of May!
Additional donations can be made out to Growing Up Healthy (1651 Jefferson Parkway, Northfield, MN 55057) or online at http://givemn.razoo.com/story/Growinguphealthy, select “dedicate to” and fill-in “Farmer to Family Project.”
Northfield News: Cooking Camaraderie
New Dinner Time Cooking Club builds bridges across Northfield community
By ERIN O’NEILL
Stephanie Calderon had cooked beans a thousand times, but never quite like this.
As one of the neighborhood leaders for Viking Terrace through a Growing Up Healthy outreach program, Calderon decided to attend the organization’s newest effort to bring members of the Northfield Latino community together — a multicultural cooking club.
There she learned that a little cilantro and a different cooking style can go a long way in changing the taste of your beans. But a new recipe was far from the most valuable thing she picked up at the club.
“Food brings us all together as a community,” said Calderon, a Mexican immigrant who has lived in Northfield for 16 years. “It’s nice to socialize with people you’ve never met before and to share similar interests. Just being there in the same kitchen is great. We’re all helping each other out.”
The club was originally created by Growing Up Healthy — a local organization that works to connect marginalized families to community resources — to facilitate positive relationships between members of the Latino community in Northfield. Finding that the majority of residents in Viking Terrace were not well acquainted with their neighbors, the organization took the first step in boosting social capital and helped those in the community of immigrants bond with each other.
But after experiencing much success with the multicultural cooking club, Growing Up Healthy wanted to take things to the next level, and enlisted the help of another sub-community in Northfield.
“They were looking for clarification on what was going well and what wasn’t going as well,” said Katie Westwood, a St. Olaf graduate who helped conduct research for the organization.
Working in conjunction with former St. Olaf faculty member Devyani Chandran, Westwood and classmate Stephanie Villarreal conducted interviews and focus groups with participants to collect feedback on current efforts and suggestions for future endeavors.
“We found that bonding was facilitated by the activities but bridging is harder in general for these types of organizations,” said Westwood.
Now that connections had been developed within the Latino community itself, Growing Up Healthy wanted to be intentional about creating opportunities for recent immigrants to connect with the more established Northfield population. The organization took the data gathered by the local college students and used it to pursue a $50,000 grant from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation, part of which is going towards funding a more diverse cooking club.
Partnering with Just Food Co-op, Growing Up Healthy is now providing the opportunity for co-op members and anyone else in the community interested in learning how to make Latin-inspired dishes and other kinds of ethnic cuisine to attend the Dinner Time Cooking Club the first Monday of every month.
“We’re branching out and exploring the ideas of bridging and linking to see how we can connect [our participants] with the greater Northfield community,” said Leah Eby, coordinator for Growing Up Healthy.
According to Eby, the two club events hosted so far have been very well-attended and all participants leave having learned something new, whether it be how to make a new bean dish or developing a shared interest with a neighbor.
“Not everyone who goes speaks English, but that is not a barrier,” said Calderon.
“At the cooking club, they are on the same ground as everybody else,” said Villarreal. “They really appreciated that it wasn’t about status, but cooking. And they liked being able to bring dishes to the table instead of always being on the receiving end.”
Since the start of the first cooking club, Eby has seen immense growth within the Latino community and hopes that the new dinner time club will be just as successful in creating ties across all Northfield populations.
“I love to be part of my community and give to my community what I can offer as a person,” said Calderon. “There are so many things that Northfield has for our community to be a part of.”
Reach reporter Erin O’Neill in Faribault at 333-3132 or in Northfield at 645-1115, or follow her on Twitter.com @ReporterONeill.November 14th is Give to the Max Day!
Join Growing Up Healthy at the Northfield GIVES at the Grand event to celebrate and encourage more giving in Northfield on Give to the Max Day!
The Northfield GIVES at the Grand celebration event will be on November, 14th from 5 to 9 pm at the Grand and is sponsored by Apple Chevrolet. Representatives from local organizations will be on hand to answer any questions or assist you with your online donations. There will be free food and entertainment by the Bratlanders. Admission is free with your Give to the Max Day donation of $10 or more to the organization of your choice during the event.
All gifts you make to Growing Up Healthy on November 14 will help us make an even bigger impact in our community. Make your gift on November 14 by coming to Northfield GIVES at the Grand or by visiting http://givemn.razoo.com/story/Growinguphealthy.
Growing Up Healthy featured on Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation of Minnesota grantee spotlight panel
Taide Rodriguez, Growing Up Healthy Neighborhood Leader, speaking on a grantee spotlight panel.
On October 28, 2013, the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Foundation of Minnesota hosted an all-grantee gathering focusing on health equity. More than 120 grantees from all four focus areas (Early Childhood Development, Health Equity, Social Connectedness, and Access to Coverage) joined representatives from the Center for Prevention’s health equity programs to hear national, state and local leaders speak and to share in rich discussion about their successes and challenges in working to advance health equity in the state.
Taide Rodriguez, a Growing Up Healthy Neighborhood Leader, and I had the opportunity to attend this gathering and to speak on the grantee spotlight panel about Growing Up Healthy. This was a great opportunity to share what Growing Up Healthy is doing to address health equity in Rice County through our work to improve the social connectedness of marginalized families.
A big thank you and congratulations to Taide for speaking so eloquently about the work of Growing Up Healthy!
To learn more about health equity in Minnesota and across the country, go to: http://www.bcbsmnfoundation.org/our-focus/health-equity
Growing Up Healthy receives Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation Grant
News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contacts:
Leah Eby, Growing Up Healthy
(314) 315-7725, Leah@growinguphealthy.org
Julie Ann Eastling, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation
(651) 662-6574, Julie_A_Eastling@bluecrossmn.com
Growing Up Healthy awarded grant through Blue Cross Foundation
Grant helps Rice County residents be healthier by strengthening networks
Northfield, Minn. (Sept. 23, 2013) — Growing Up Healthy has received a $50,000 grant with a chance for renewal for a second year from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation to help improve health in Rice County. The funds will be used for social capital development work in low-income neighborhoods in Rice County. The work will empower groups of leaders from historically marginalized communities to better advocate for their peers and foster important connections both within and beyond their neighborhoods.
Growing Up Healthy is a program under the organizational umbrella of the Northfield Healthy Community Initiative (HCI) and works in close partnership with Rice County’s largest social service, educational, and health organizations.
The Growing Up Healthy grant is one of 12 awarded to nonprofits across the state to help increase the opportunity for residents to reach their full health potential by building connections among different groups and strengthening networks.
“The Rice County Growing Up Healthy model is a great example of leveraging community resources to improve the overall health and social connectedness of neighborhoods, thus improving the overall vitality of our community,” said Erin Mayberry, Community Services Director for Northfield Public Schools and Growing Up Healthy Executive Committee co-chair.
“We are proud to support the great work of Growing Up Healthy,” said Carolyn Link, Foundation executive director. “We know that when people are connected with each other in their communities, they’re healthier.”
The program is part of the Foundation’s efforts to ensure that all Minnesotans have an equal opportunity to live a healthy life regardless of income, education, race and other socioeconomic factors that affect health.
For more information on Growing Up Healthy’s programs, visit growinguphealthy.org or email Leah@growinguphealthy.org.
For more information on Blue Cross’s grantmaking programs, visit bcbsmnfoundation.org or call (651) 662-3950 or toll free at 1-866-812-1593.
Growing Up Healthy seeks to increase the level of community connectedness experienced by marginalized families in Rice County.
The Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Foundation exclusively dedicates its assets to improving health in Minnesota, awarding more than $34 million since it was established in 1986. The Foundation’s purpose is to make a healthy difference in people’s lives by improving the community conditions that affect the health of children and families.