Choosing Healthy & Active Lifestyles for Kids™ (CHALK

Choosing Healthy & Active Lifestyles for Kids (CHALK)

EMMA HULSE • Program Manager • emh9022@nyp.org DODI MEYER, MD • Medical Director • ddm11@cumc.columbia.edu

Mission and Goals

NewYork-Presbyterian’s obesity prevention program, CHALK, is a collaboration with NewYorkPresbyterian/Columbia University Irving Medical Center and the Northern Manhattan community. CHALK’S aim is to lower the prevalence of childhood and adolescent obesity in Northern Manhattan by establishing an environment where healthy lifestyles are vital components of the lives of all families.

CHALK’s programming is founded in 10 healthy habits adapted from Healthy Directions and its Healthy Children Healthy Futures program and further developed by community stakeholders to ensure that the habits are health literate and culturally sensitive and avoid stigmatization. CHALK’s areas of focus include community organizations and programs, early childhood centers, public elementary and high schools, faith-based organizations, and NewYork-Presbyterian’s outpatient pediatric practices.

CHALK school partners are connected with a full-time staff member to help them assess and create wellness goals in collaboration with the organization’s leadership and wellness champions. Organizations choose from a “menu” of options, ranging from grant writing and partnership building to promoting healthy food and active design. This approach enables an organization to create, implement, and feel ownership over its wellness goals and projects. This nonprescriptive approach and the fluidity of CHALK make the program model easily adaptable to a variety of settings. In 2020, CHALK continues to focus on food insecurity and capacity building with community-based organizations.

Number of People Reached

CHALK partners include:

4

11

5

12

35

5

5

Early childhood centers

Elementary schools

High schools

Faith-based organizations

Community-based organizations

Farmers markets

ACN Primary Care Practices

“Thank you to Joan Ganz Cooney for your generous gift.”more copy to come

Key Accomplishments

•CHALK elementary and high school partnerships expanded. A new community nutritionist joined the team, increasing access to nutrition appointments at school-based health centers and establishing two new school partnerships. Ten District 6 public schools received a combined $7,000 in grants to support wellness initiatives designed by school wellness councils and champions. Other school highlights include a new weight room at George Washington Educational

Campus and seven professional development workshops held at elementary schools to increase staff confidence in implementing nutrition and physical activity policies.

•CHALK Jr. launched a new early childhood center partnership in 2019 and continued to increase access to physical activity and healthy food across sites through active design projects, nutrition education, and a rooftop garden initiative. A food insecurity screener was developed for intake and an emergency food distribution program launched to support students’ families.

•CHALK Youth Market Program is a partnership between CHALK and

GrowNYC to offer paid summer internships to youth. Supervised by

CHALK staff, interns worked at three farmers markets in 2019 and ran a farm stand outside an outpatient practice in Northern Manhattan. The program provides increased access to

fresh produce and health education for community members. In 2019, nine youth interns led over 100 market tours and raised $2,800 to support a local food pantry. In 2020, 20 youth interns joined the program and supported both the farm stand and CHALK’s emergency food distribution response to COVID-19.

•The Fruit and Vegetable Prescription

Program is a collaboration between the NewYork-Presbyterian Ambulatory

Care Network’s Nutrition Department,

Grow NYC, and CHALK, and is funded by NewYork-Presbyterian Community

Relations. Registered dietitians

“prescribe” fruits and vegetables for their patients. The prescription is redeemable for $10 in fruit and vegetable coupons at the Grow NYC tents of the 168th Street, 175th Street, and Isham greenmarkets. In 2019, a $20 prescription option was added for patients experiencing food insecurity.

In total, 712 patients received one or more prescriptions in 2019, and $15,730 of fresh, local produce was purchased.

•To increase access to emergency food resources, CHALK’s mobile market initiative expanded after a successful pilot in 2019. Launching in May, 50 families received groceries twice monthly from West Side Campaign

Against Hunger’s client-choice-style mobile market. The pilot contributed to a 15 percent decrease in food insecurity among participants after two months. After the onset of the

COVID-19 pandemic, the program grew rapidly to support families experiencing food insecurity across Northern

Manhattan and the Bronx. CHALK partnered with NewYork-Presbyterian healthcare teams, public schools, and local community-based organizations El Nido and Mexican Coalition to reach 1,255 unique households and distribute 159,630 pounds of healthy food between March 15 and July 31, 2020. As the pandemic and economic shutdown sent ripples across the city, NewYork-Presbyterian invested $5 million to increase access to emergency food resources in Lower Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and Westchester. NewYork-Presbyterian patients and community members at six sites will receive once- or twice-monthly grocery boxes for 12 months alongside connection to social services and entitlement enrollment.

•In September 2019, CHALK launched the Capacity Building Initiative to increase support for communityand faith-based organizations. The inaugural conference—Building a

Stronger CBO—was attended by 80 community members representing 50 different organizations. Workshops focused on fundraising, data and evaluation, and working with public officials. After the conference, a workshop and webinar series launched.

Plan A Consulting provided one-on-one support to three community-based organizations and crisis coaching to two organizations following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.