Health Care Foundation on Tuesday, August 14, 2012 to support the continuation and expansion of Mass in Motion’s evidence-based policy, systems, and environmental change approaches that address childhood obesity throughout the city. The project chosen for this grant was the Victory Park Children’s Garden, a Mass in Motion New Bedford initiative that was developed in collaboration with the City of New Bedford, Trips for Kids New Bedford, UMass Dartmouth Sustainability Initiative and other Mass in Motion New Bedford partners.
The brief program included remarks by Mayor Jon Mitchell, City of New Bedford; Dr. Pauline Hamel, Mass in Motion New Bedford coordinator; Mr. Michael Devlin, Manager, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation; Ms. JoAnn Tschaen, Executive Director of Trips for Kids New Bedford; and Mr. Chancery Perks, UMass Dartmouth’s Sustainability Initiative, and Trips for Kids youth participants.
The Victory Park Children’s Garden project supports the development of a children’s learning garden in the South end of New Bedford where children and peer leaders from Trips for Kids New Bedford can grow, explore and learn about vegetables, basic gardening principles, food safety and how to create healthy snacks. The children’s experiences are documented as a photo/video journal throughout the progression of the garden, and each week children have the opportunity to harvest the produce and bring home what they have grown for their families to enjoy.
The grant was made possible by the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation and its ongoing support for Mass in Motion through Health Resources in Action (HRiA). Mass in Motion is a statewide partnership between the Massachusetts Department of Public Health, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation, Health Resources in Action and other funders to increase active living and healthy eating in the Commonwealth. The Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Foundation’s funding initiative, Growing Up Healthy, is an eight year, $9.5 million initiative to curb childhood obesity by supporting evidence-based programs, such as Mass in Motion, that make changes to the environments where kids spend the majority of their time. (Originally posted by CityofNewBedfordMA, )
