Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, the Healthy Communities Partnership has not stopped working to better the health of Evansville residents. Due to the widespread impact of Covid-19 and struggles many community members are facing, our work is more important now than ever. Our partners have stepped up to offer our community free cooked-from-scratch meals (Urban Seeds), provided online workout videos (Ivy Tech), and offered online classes from nutrition education to mental health management(Purdue Extension).
In March of 2020, HCP, with lead partner Urban Seeds, launched Nourish. Nourish is an innovative community food buying club that provides high quality food at a lower cost than big box stores. Originally the program partnered with Ivy Tech and the Dream Center to deliver food orders, but due to facility closures, food orders were delivered directly to participant’s doors. Since March Nourish has fulfilled 73 food orders to families. Nourish also accepts SNAP so participants can get the most value from their benefits.
Another effort HCP has been actively involved in is Feed Evansville. Feed Evansville is a task force formed specifically to help assist food insecure families due to the pandemic. One of the group’s first actions was to offer $40 grocery boxes, which were delivered to community member’s homes or non-profits. HCP worked with Feed Evansville to process SNAP transactions through Nourish to ensure those who were receiving food benefits could use them to buy the discounted box of food. Feed Evansville also served free meals at the CK Newsome Community Center. HCP played a key role in raising funds to support food relief efforts and was the financial agent to hold all Feed Evansville donations.
In June, Feed Evansville partnered with Gleaners Food Bank in Indianapolis to supply over 5000 free boxes of fresh produce and dairy products every week to community members in need. Each Monday, cars lined up to get their 20lb of produce and a variety of dairy. On Friday’s, area non-profits received boxes to distribute among their clients. Due to the heightened need for work around food access, the Mayor of Evansville designated a food security group as part of the Re Open Evansville task force. The task force meets once a week to assess the gaps and fill the needs around food access in Evansville. An ordinance to form an Evansville Food Commission is scheduled to appear in front of city council by the end of 2020.
Once the stay at home order was lifted, residents started to go outside; started to use the parks and trails as a way to be active but stay safe. The HCP active living workgroup has since been working on bringing an innovative green space addition called a Story Trail to Garvin Park. A Story Trail is a children’s book where each page of the story is mounted on permanent, durable signs. The first Story Trail in Evansville is 14 pages and features two stories that families can read on a short walk. Each panel is around 2ft high and 3ft long and attached to posts grounded in cement. Each panel is at a children’s height which makes them appealing to all ages. The first Story Trail signs are ordered and plan to be placed in the ground by the end of October 2020. Donations to add more Story Trails in Evansville Parks can be found on the Evansville Trails Coalition website. This initiative is especially impactful, as it address multiple health and development factors such as, physical activity, literacy, and mental health.
To support local food and goods producers and maintain an important food access point, HCP worked with Purdue Extension and the Vanderburgh County Health Department to implement safety guidelines for the 2020 Market on Main farmers market and the Pop up produce stand outside of the WIC office. After careful planning, the Market on Main opened on the originally planned start date, requiring face coverings and social distancing while shopping. This year, a curb side pick-up option was added so all residents could assess local goods while ensuring their safety and health. In total, 68 food boxes were ordered with 16 of those boxes being a donation box to someone in need. Larkin’s Produce set up every Tuesday from 10:00 to 2:00pm to sell their fruits and vegetables outside of the WIC office. They would accept SNAP, cash, and WIC’s farmers market vouchers. Over the past three years the redemption rate for the WIC farmers market vouchers have increased due to the easy access to fresh foods.
Most recently, HCP was part of a two day facilitation led by the EPA focused on creating goals and action items to improve our local food system. HCP was heavily involved in this process and will serve as the lead agency for several initiatives over the next few years. While this work is still early in the planning process the initiatives are ambitious and address multiple sectors of our food system.
The Healthy Communities Partnership is proud to be a leader for positive change in our community, but we also realize the benefit of the many partners we rely on to implement our initiatives. With continued support and collaboration we look forward to continued success and improving the health of our community.
