“Call for Partnerships:” an innovative strategy to establish grassroots partnerships to transform the food and fitness environments

Abstract

Building an effective citywide movement to transform the food and fitness environments requires the people who experience the greatest burden of health inequities to be at the forefront of this transformation. The Holyoke Food and Fitness Policy Council (HFFPC) developed an innovative strategy, known as Call for Partnerships (CfP), to build collective capacity by supporting local projects and engaging community residents in the movement to transform the food and fitness environment. HFFPC offered two phases of small grants to projects which were evaluated by a youth/adult participatory evaluation team to capture the process outcomes. Results indicate that the CfP was successful in reaching out to organizations and demonstrating how discrete projects can impact system and policy changes in the Holyoke community; however, much potential remains for fulfilling a key goal of CfP, which was to engage community residents in the movement to transform the food and fitness environment.