Create a Healthier Niagara Falls Collaborative

Through its Healthy Neighborhoods Fund initiative, NYHealth is supporting six communities across the State in their efforts to increase residents’ access to nutritious food, opportunities for physical activity, and other initiatives that encourage healthy living. Healthy Neighborhoods Fund grantees and their partners have sought ways to increase community engagement so they can equip residents with the tools they need to advocate for healthy, affordable food and safer parks and public spaces in which to be physically active. Community engagement not only helps shape a neighborhood’s future, but also ensures that improvements are sustainable. To advance community engagement efforts, NYHealth is allocating up to $50,000 to each Healthy Neighborhoods Fund site toward additional training, capacity building, and other activities that lead to deep engagement with neighborhood residents. In 2016, NYHealth awarded Create a Healthier Niagara Falls Collaborative (the Collaborative) a grant as part of this effort.

Under this grant, the Collaborative designed and implemented a leadership program for residents, which will produce self-created projects designed to engage Niagara Falls residents in improving health and wellness of the city, neighborhoods, families, and themselves. Specifically, the Collaborative led training and leadership development sessions for the program participants and provided additional training through monthly webinars on skills improvement and bi-monthly coaching calls.