Guest Post: Healthy Food, Healthy Communities
December
21,
2011
A couple of years ago, I was at a Dominican birthday party in the Bronx. Just like the other parties I'd been to, women brought big trays of food to share and hung out in the kitchen talking. The food is delicious, but can be heavy and unhealthy. I was struck by a vision - I clearly saw in my mind a woman strolling into the kitchen and revealing a tray of a delicious typical dish made healthy. She would tell everyone the substitutions she'd made and distribute copies of the recipe. This vision was the catalyst for Healthy Parents Fellowship.
Working as a teacher in the Bronx and Harlem since 2007, I witnessed children and families eating poorly. Nutrition and health became my passion. I wanted to develop a program that would lead to lasting lifestyle changes and that would reach busy working families. Healthy Parents Fellowship is the idea that grew out of this desire. In this project, parent leaders will serve as models for their community by improving their health and the health of their families. Then they will help their neighbors and the Washington Heights community by creating a community action project- their personal solutions to the obesity epidemic.
Parents will use their own experiences to create projects uniquely suited for their community. Each parent will affect the lives of people around them, and the impact of the program will grow exponentially as whole communities are reached by the parents' peer education efforts.
I'm ready to bring Healthy Parents Fellowship to life! I truly believe parents can fight obesity and make a huge difference.
The crowdfunding experience has been interesting and rewarding so far. I learned about crowdfunding a while ago, but many people I speak to are not familiar with it yet. Thus, I have found myself explaining the model often. I think it's exciting that the project could be someone's first crowdfunding experience!
Everyone has been so enthusiastic: sharing the project on Facebook and Twitter, writing kind words, and urging their friends to support. The positive feedback about the project idea and model has been amazing. It only drives me to work harder, and to believe 110% that Healthy Parents Fellowship will succeed on RocketHub and in changing lives.
For success, use all the resources RocketHub offers, including the toolkit. Take the time to carefully decide your goal. We could have been more ambitious, but it seemed more important to set an achievable goal. Talk to anyone and everyone about what you're doing, you never know who'll end up supporting you. One of my most surprising supporters was a fellow Duke alum who I met at an event. I sent him the link on Facebook and he fueled the project the next day! You are constantly building your network, so continue reaching out to people as you meet them.
- Catarina Rivera, Founder/Director of Healthy Kids in the Heights
