Nourish Colorado

Programs: Programs & initiativesthrough programming & initiatives, livewell supports the efforts of hundreds of local partner agencies, organizations, and coalitions to advance access to healthy food and physical activity. The following are livewell's primary programs and initiatives: livewell's double up food bucks (double up) program increased the purchase of fresh, colorado-grown fruits and vegetables among families who participate in the supplemental nutrition assistance program (snap) by providing incentives at over 100 farmers markets and innovative local retailers (including community supported agriculture, food see schedule o for additional information co-operatives, corner stores, and urban agriculture marketplaces) across the state. Families receiving snap who purchased produce at participating sites received a voucher for up to $20 toward the purchase of colorado-grown fruits and vegetables. In 2017, the program reached approximately 5,755 total customers, with 56% having at least one child under the age of 18. During the year, $145,898 in double up incentives were redeemed, contributing to the local economy throughout the state. The program was enhanced by a strong partnership with cooking matters, which offered on-site nutrition education, and through partnerships with local nutrition education organizations and the colorado farmers market association. To help drive visibility and awareness of double up among snap customers, livewell launched multi-media campaigns that included campaign advertising through billboards, social media platforms, google searches, and other mediums. In order to reach coloradans who participate in snap, the media buys targeted low-income audiences and were presented in both english and spanish. Livewell also piloted a community food advocate program in 2017, which complements the existing double up program. The advocate program has a goal of transforming double up into a more grassroots and sustainable incentive program by working with participants as key ambassadors and decision-makers in program outreach and planning, and increasing life-long fruit and vegetable consumption by snap participants. Livewell colorado's school food initiative (sfi) invested over $684k in programs to transition school district kitchen operations to offer freshly prepared student meals. Sfi conducted school meal assessments with recommendations for school districts, presented culinary workshops to teach fundamentals of scratch cooking, and dedicated a team of on-site chef consultants to partner with districts throughout the school year in creating and implementing sustainable culinary action plans to improve student meals. Program evaluation tools were implemented to assess sustainable changes. Livewell colorado (livewell) continued to expand the heal cities & towns campaign in partnership with the colorado municipal league to encourage municipalities to pass and implement local healthy eating and active living related policies. The campaign reached a milestone of over 50 participating municipalities, representing more than 50% of the population of colorado. Livewell hosted a fifth annual heal summit, which brought together municipal and community leaders to learn and share best policy and environmental practices to remove barriers to health throughout the state.

policy & advocacy: livewell colorado leads and supports local, state, and federal policy efforts that remove legislative and regulatory barriers, as well as working to create environments and resource allocations that improve the ability for people on low incomes and/or in communities of color to eat healthy food and be physically active. In 2017, livewell partnered with denver's westwood neighborhood and played a key role in ensuring that a denver recreation center was included in the denver 2017 bond package. Westwood, which has consistently had a lack of access to healthy foods, preventative care, and opportunities for safe and affordable physical activity, and where 35% of the neighborhood's see schedule o for additional information residents live below the federal povery line, participated in livewell's policy assistance and strategy support (pass) project. The project, which provides targeted technical assistance to help partners in strategizing, passing and implementing community-identified, local-level policy initiatives, was instrumental in assisting community members to ensure that the recreation center was included in bond proposal (2a-2g), which passed on denver's 2017 ballot. Livewell's local advocacy and food policy networks consist of partners throughout the state who engage in policy advocacy at the state and federal levels on behalf of livewell, their own organizations, and their communities. Members actively engaged on a wide variety of issues, and in 2017 this largely resulted in supporting a unified voice from 18 local food coalitions on a wide range of legislative opportunities. Some of this work focused on continuation and funding for colorado's food systems advisory council. Though the legislation failed, awareness around the issues of food systems in colorado for legislators did increase and will be vital in advancing various legislative efforts in the coming years.

communications & outreach: livewell colorado uses a robust communications platform to educate, build public will, and advance the efforts of local champions of healthy eating and active living. Livewell's communications and outreach activities centered on building and mobilizing champions for health, raising awareness about barriers to healthy, affordable food and physical activity, and encouraging actions that advanced health equity throughout the state. Through a variety of digital and traditional communication and marketing tools (e. G. Website, facebook, twitter, earned and paid media, speaking engagements, and more), livewell inspired and engaged individual and organizational see schedule o for additional information stakeholders to become advocates for and champions of healthy eating and active living, and was centered on helping eliminate health disparities and advancing health equity.