Grant aids Portland-area healthy community plans

Robert Wood Johnson Foundation taps health partnership as one of 41 sites for funding

The Portland Tribune, Jan 11, 2010 (3 Reader comments)

An Oregon nonprofit group will use a private $360,000 grant to help create a healthy living plan in the Portland area to battle childhood obesity.

Oregon’s Community Health Partnership is one of 41 programs across the nation to receive grants from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The money will go toward promoting healthy eating and active living for children in Portland and Multnomah County affordable housing communities.

The grant was announced Monday. The regional private health group’s plan was among 500 proposals submitted to the foundation for funding through the RWJF Healthy Kids Healthy Communities initiative.

The goal is to provide nutrition and active lifestyle programs for low- and moderate-income children in the Portland area.

“This grant will help create healthy, complete communities for all Portland residents, not just for those who can afford to live in Portland’s most desirable neighborhoods,” said Noelle Dobson, project director at Community Health Partnership, a not-for-profit group working on health and lifestyle issues. “We need to ensure that as Portland grows and develops over the next decades that lower income residents and communities of color also benefit from Portland’s tradition of building livable communities.”

The goal of the local four-year project is to bring together public health, affordable housing and urban planning to ensure that families living in affordable housing have access to healthy eating and active living amenities.

The program will use a health impact assessment as part of an urban planning study already being done by the city’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability along Southeast 122nd Avenue, to develop policy objectives.

“Our unique partnership with urban planning and affordable housing partners allows us to build support for healthy eating and active living into the very framework of how we approach community development in Portland.”

The Healthy Active Communities for Portland’s Affordable Housing Families initiative is led by the Community Health Partnership in collaboration with Oregon Opportunity Network, Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, Community Cycling Center, ROSE Community Development Corp., Janus Youth Village Gardens and Kaiser Permanente.

The Robert Wood Johnson Healthy Kids, Healthy Communities is a $33 million national program and the foundation’s largest investment in community-based solutions to childhood obesity. The program is being used in 50 communities, from Seattle to Puerto Rico, targeting healthy lifestyles and better nutrition for children. It’s also a cornerstone of the foundation’s $500 million commitment to reverse the U.S. childhood obesity epidemic by 2015.

For more information, check the Web site, www.healthykidshealthycommunities.org.

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