Category Archives: Healthy Neighborhoods

A new toolkit to boost community health

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Our communities have powerful and lasting effects on our health. Think about the neighborhood you call home. Are there enough sidewalks and bike lanes to ensure that you can get around safely? Is healthy food easy to access and affordable? Are there well-maintained parks and other open areas for you to spend time outside? 

From our physical environments to our social environments, there are lots of opportunities to shape the places we live and, in turn, shape our health and the health of our neighbors. But sometimes boosting community health can seem like a tall order. Where would one begin? 

Continue reading A new toolkit to boost community health →

Five food security projects that are helping to revive and sustain communities

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Over 15 million households in America experience periodic food insecurity. That means over 12 percent of our population, at any given time, does not have enough food to meet their needs, or is uncertain they will be able to get enough. Continue reading Five food security projects that are helping to revive and sustain communities →

12 currently funding projects, led by women, on International Women’s Day!

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From the Women’s March to the #metoo and #timesup movements—in the past 15 months we’ve seen many strong civic leaders step up and create grassroots movements that speak for women’s rights in all its facets.

Here at ioby, we believe that positive change starts in our backyards. Everyday we see on-the-ground women leaders combat racial injustices, advocate for bike safety, beautify public spaces, mentor young women of color, and SO much more!

Continue reading 12 currently funding projects, led by women, on International Women’s Day! →

Funders! Matching crowdfunding campaigns gets your money closer to the ground

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Health foundations exist to improve the wellbeing of the communities they serve. That’s why their grantmaking is often focused on local nonprofit organizations. And that’s great.

But did you know there’s a way for foundations to get their funding even closer to the ground, and encourage more community engagement in health initiatives—while helping to generate additional money for beneficial programs and projects?

All these things are possible when foundations leverage the benefits of community crowdfunding to boost the impact of their efforts and dollars.

Continue reading Funders! Matching crowdfunding campaigns gets your money closer to the ground →

AWESOME PROJECT: Help fund repairs for a beloved community garden in the Bronx

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Sometimes a community garden just needs a little extra TLC, and this is one of those times for the Bryant Hill Community Garden, in the Bronx. One of only two community gardens in the South Bronx, and an easy 5 minute walk away for half of all Hunts Point residents – whose neighborhood is a food desert with asthma-triggering air quality – it’s desperately needed, and brimming with potential. Unfortunately, its vegetation and stone pathways, battered by years of rainstorms, are also brimming with debris.

Continue reading AWESOME PROJECT: Help fund repairs for a beloved community garden in the Bronx →

Here’s to $113K raised for Healthy Neighborhoods in New York!

Healthy Neighborhoods

The second round of the Healthy Neighborhoods Challenge  is complete!

Building on the success of last year’s program, we teamed up once again with the New York State Health Foundation to  help   support resident-led health and wellness projects   in seven neighborhoods   in New York — across   12 zip codes — including East Harlem and the Lower East Side in Manhattan;  Hunts Point, Claremont,  and Mott Haven in the Bronx; Brownsville in Brooklyn,  and Clinton County.

This time around, residents raised a total of $113,273   for projects that make their neighborhoods healthier, more active, and more full of opportunity. This total includes the matching funds that NYS Health Foundation provided to each project, based on its individual fundraising goal. The total of  match funds distributed was $49,396 and the total in citizen philanthropy that ioby leaders raised from their neighbors was $63,877. In other words, for every dollar received from match funds, ioby leaders raised $1.30 from within their communities!

21   ioby projects participated in this round of the Healthy Neighborhoods Challenge — these projects all have the goal of creating a culture of health by making their neighborhoods greener or safer; improving local access to affordable healthy food; promoting walking, biking, or other exercise; educating neighbors about lifestyle changes, and more.

Here’s what some of our favorite participating leaders had to say about their work:

 

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“Community gardens are known for engaging all different types of people: youth, teachers, new Americans… People just walking by, or coming from work, will stop and say, ‘Hey, what’s happening here?’ Then they pick up a shovel! Everyone gets to mingle and trade ideas.”  

– Alicia Williamson, Lydia’s Magic Garden

East Harlem residents led by Alicia  raised more than $2,500 to restore  this beloved 20-year-old community space,  which had lost most of its plantings and amenities after serving as a staging ground for the redevelopment of an adjacent building.

Read their story

 

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“How can we set up a community-led resource that helps bring fresh and local food directly to the tables of our residents? How can we bring in more sustainably farmed and raised food  and also keep it affordable? How can residents who rely on food subsidies eat better without going to another community for food? Our market helps solve many of these problems.”  

– Lily Kesselman,  the South Bronx Farmers’ Market

The mostly-volunteer team at the South Bronx Farmers’ Market raised more than $10,000 to  extend their hours of operation to include a weekly Wednesday market in addition to the Saturday hours they’re already open.

Read their story

 

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“I’ve lived here my whole life, but I rarely get to see or talk to a lot of the other people who live here. I want to give us a space where we can work together. There’s something so special about taking part in the growth of something, and all watching it grow together.”

– Veronica  Vasquez, NYCHA Community Garden

17-year-old Veronica and her mom Liz live  on the Lower East Side. They exceeded their fundraising goal of $1,300 to build a new  community garden at the NYCHA complex where they live.

Read their story

You can see all 21   Healthy Neighborhoods Challenge projects at ioby.org/healthy.

NYC high schooler’s community garden will give her neighbors a breath of fresh air

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With the New York State Health Foundation (NYSHealth), ioby is excited to present  the second year of the Healthy Neighborhoods Challenge! Just like last year, the 2017 Challenge is supporting residents across New York state who are taking an active role in creating a culture of health where they live. To read more about how the Healthy Neighborhoods Challenge came to be, check out this blog post from last summer.

Donations to the all of this year’s participating campaigns (including the one we’re profiling below) will be matched dollar-for-dollar  by NYSHealth through  May 25. That means your gift will go twice as far to improve public health outcomes across New York!

“There’s kind of a stigma around living or being near NYCHA [New York City Housing Authority] buildings,” says Veronica Vasquez, a NYCHA resident and leader of the Healthy Neighborhoods Challenge campaign Blooming Streets – NYCHA Community Garden. “When you look at them, they’re just brick and bars. I want to give us something to be proud of as we look in our back yard. Some beauty and some colors!” Continue reading NYC high schooler’s community garden will give her neighbors a breath of fresh air →

Neighbors cultivate good health at Lydia’s Magic Garden in East Harlem

Awesome Project, Healthy Neighborhoods

With the New York State Health Foundation (NYSHealth), ioby is excited to present the second year of the Healthy Neighborhoods Challenge! Just like last year, the 2017 Challenge is supporting residents across New York State who are taking an active role in creating a culture of health where they live. To read more about how the Healthy Neighborhoods Challenge came to be, check out this blog post from last summer.

Donations to the all of this year’s participating campaigns (including this one!) will be matched dollar-for-dollar by NYSHealth through May 25. That means your gift will go twice as far to improve public health outcomes across New York!

“Those of us who participate in community gardens, we tend to connect with great people whom we ordinarily would not meet in an urban environment,” says Alicia Williamson, leader of the Healthy Neighborhoods Challenge campaign Lydia’s Magic Garden (LMG). “And we do it in a nicer way—not by bumping into them on the subway! It’s a nicer, kinder, more peaceful way to connect.”

Alicia, an East Harlem resident, is a first-time ioby leader, but a seasoned community greener: LMG will be her third garden renovation in the neighborhood since 2007. The space was initially reclaimed from its previous identity as a vacant lot about 25 years ago by Lydia Roman, another neighbor who was tired of seeing trash fill up what could be a place for community recreation and enjoyment.

Continue reading Neighbors cultivate good health at Lydia’s Magic Garden in East Harlem →

VIDEO: Kelly Street Garden, South Bronx

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Kelly Street Garden has been a hub of healthy food and growing community in the South Bronx for more than 4 years. Despite being in the poorest national congressional district and lowest-ranked county by health in New York State, the garden, mostly run by volunteers, has grown and distributed hundreds of pounds of produce to neighbors—for free—through weekly summer Farm Stands, cooking workshops, and other events.

 

 

Recently, Kelly Street Garden raised nearly $5,000 on ioby as part of the Healthy Neighborhoods Challenge, to launch a “Garden Ambassador Program.” This summer program will provide opportunities for three youth garden ambassadors to build critical urban gardening skills, deepen knowledge of urban agriculture careers, and receive $1,000 to help maintain the 2,500-square-foot growing space over 16 weeks.

 

Building healthier communities webinar now available!

Healthy Neighborhoods


Earlier this month, ioby presented our second session in our new series of “Lunch and Learn” webinars. This conversation was all about how to bring  healthy living to your block. We heard stories from successful ioby projects that focused on community health, and got to see models and approaches for making our neighborhood healthier. We discussed everything from the health benefits of yoga, to how to grow a local project to do the most good for the long term, to how to talk about this work in the most engaging way.  

 

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We are grateful to have presenters with amazing experiences and knowledge to share:

  • Michael Marino, ioby project leader of Let’s Get Moving! Bringing Free Yoga to the Park in New York’s Lower East Side
  • Donovan Finn, ioby project leader of Jackson Heights’ 78th Street Play Street
  • Joanne Lee, Collaborative Learning Director at Active Living By Design
  • Raquel Bournhonesque, Community Coach at County Health Rankings & Roadmaps (a collaboration of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute).

If you weren’t able to join us in real time, we are sharing the recording here so you can watch and listen to the whole thing when you are able – and share it with friends and neighbors!

Stay tuned for details about our next learning webinar about play, taking place on Monday, April 24th.