Bronx Health REACH Appears at NYU Community Health Forum and Just Food Conference

The Just Food Conference, a two day event featuring interactive workshops, policy discussions, and opportunities to advocate for equitable food policy, was held at Teachers College, Columbia University on Sunday, March 12th. Emma Rodgers from Bronx Health REACH appeared with Ramon Murphy, President of the Bodega Association and a Bronx Health REACH partner in the Healthy Bodega Program. The panel, Bronx Bodegas: Healthy Retail in the Bronx, also featured Montefiore Medical Center, BronxWorks and Urban Health Plan, each of whom is doing their own Healthy Bodega Programs.

The New York University College of Global Public Health held a Community Health Forum on Friday, March 10th and Bronx Health REACH's Charmaine Ruddock spoke on the panel, Promoting Inter-sectoral Partnerships. Other panelists included, Adrienne Abbate from the Staten Island Partnership for Community Wellness; Sandra Lobo from the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition; and Tamara Greenfield from Building Healthy Communities, the Mayor’s Office of Strategic Partnerships. Charmaine focused her remarks on the importance of aligning ones organization’s interests with those of ones partners and collaborators for successful inter-sectoral partnerships. To illustrate her point she cited Bronx Health REACH’s Healthy Bodega program which, in its current iteration, recognizes that the success of the program is contingent on bodega owners experience that selling healthy food is as good for their bottom line as it is for the health of their customers. In addition to the Healthy Bodega Initiative, Charmaine also shared with the audience a similar alignment of interests with the restaurant owners in Bronx Health REACH’s Healthy Restaurant Initiative.