The health of a community can depend on the civic participation of community members in the decision-making process. There are a wide range of activities that foster community well-being, strengthen democratic institutions, and empower people to make a difference. Here are some meaningful ways to stay engaged within your community:
Participate in local government meetings
Attend public meetings like city and county councils, school boards and public comment hearings to get first-hand knowledge and stay informed about local issues, voice your concerns, and learn more about the decisions affecting your area. By attending and even speaking up, you contribute to the health of a community by informing policies, especially around community health, education, safety, and infrastructure.
Join community boards and commissions
Many cities and counties have advisory boards or commissions that provide valuable insights on areas like health, transportation, housing, and youth services. Serving on one of these groups not only deepens your knowledge but gives you a direct role in shaping the health of a community through the development lens. Civic bodies often seek people with varied perspectives to bring fresh ideas into discussions. Look for notices in your local newspaper and on social media
Volunteer for local organizations
Volunteering lets you address specific community needs through action. Whether it’s joining a local nonprofit focused on nutrition security, supporting youth programs, or advocating for healthier neighborhoods, volunteering helps communities thrive. Beyond contributing hours, volunteering builds empathy, strengthens connections, and can be a pathway to lasting relationships and the health of a community.
Engage in advocacy and policy change
If you’re passionate about an issue, consider advocating for it. Advocacy can be as simple as writing letters to elected officials, organizing petitions, or collaborating with Wholespire and others to push for policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) changes. Advocacy campaigns can help secure funding for local projects, reduce barriers for underserved groups, or create new opportunities for youth, families, and seniors.
Support local media and stay informed
Staying informed is key to understanding and addressing community needs. Subscribe to Wholespire’s newsletter and local newspapers, watch for community updates, and follow reputable local journalists and organizations on social media. When community members stay informed, they help keep local governments and institutions accountable.
Start or join a community group
Sometimes, small groups of residents can drive meaningful changes. You could start a group or join an existing coalition that advocates for safer parks, works on civic action projects, or promotes physical activity and nutritious food resources. Community groups can bring people together to create solutions-focused action plans, mobilize around shared goals, and ultimately help to make the community a healthier place for everyone.
Mentor youth or participate in youth engagement programs
Youth engagement programs that encourage civic involvement are critical for fostering long-term community health and resilience. By mentoring young people or supporting youth-led initiatives, you help shape a new generation of engaged citizens. If you work with students, engaging them in the policy change process teaches invaluable skills and brings fresh perspectives to the health of a community. Wholespire helps communities engage with youth through The HYPE Project®, coaching and technical assistance.
Get involved with community planning or visioning efforts
Many communities offer residents a chance to weigh in on their long-term vision. Public planning sessions, workshops, and surveys allow residents to give input on future projects, like new parks, affordable housing, and transportation networks. Oftentimes, state agencies, like the SC Department of Transportation, and other entities post these notices on social media. Your ideas can influence how your community develops and ensure it meets the needs of all residents.
Encourage civic engagement in your network
One of the best ways to expand civic engagement is to inspire those around you to get involved. Encourage friends, family, and neighbors to attend meetings, volunteer, or even run for local office. By building a network of active citizens, you contribute to a culture where civic participation becomes a shared, community-wide responsibility.
Civic engagement is a continuous commitment to improving our communities and creating a more inclusive, responsive society. Whether by volunteering, advocating for policy change, or mentoring youth, every action we take contributes to the health of a community and creates a lasting legacy of positive change. So, let’s get involved, stay engaged, and inspire others to join us in building a healthier South Carolina!
At Wholespire, we’re in the business of inspiring you and your neighbors to engage with each other to make South Carolina a healthier place to live. And whether we’re discussing how to do that with our family, friends, or even strangers in the grocery line, the most important time and place to make that a reality is when you vote. There are so many different ways to be engaged with your community and in the end the surest way to affect change is to show up on election day and tell ‘em what you think. Using your vote as your voice is your most important way to engage in this weird but cool thing called Democracy.
But before you show up at the voting booth, there’s a whole lot of hard work that goes on before you get there. We must have the tools to get educated on the issues, educate others if they’re willing to listen, and then make our voices heard. And that’s where Wholespire comes in!
Engagement…and Not the Wedding Kind!
There are so many ways to get involved these days but two of the most effective tools in your healthcare toolbox are civic and community engagement. Let’s talk about what those are and why you should be doing both.
Being “engaged” is a choice. It’s an active choice actually and it’s how folks from all different walks of life who care about access to healthy choices and outcomes here in South Carolina come together to make change. Civic engagement is a singular and personal approach to influencing how your local and state governments affect that change. Speaking at or attending a city council or school board meeting, advocating for issues you care about by serving on the school board or the PTA: these are ways we traditionally think about civic engagement. Then there’s that “group stuff” or community engagement where you collaborate with other community members and then collectively, you act on and propose what you want to see in your community. Common examples of this kind of engagement can include taking part in community or public meetings, focus groups, community assessments, even online surveys.
Both civic and community engagement are equally important to creating thriving, healthy communities here in South Carolina. When you exercise your right to vote and get involved with community health coalitions and other organizations like Wholespire, you are a vital, even essential, player when it comes to influencing government decisions.
Why Engagement and Voting Depend on Each Other
Being actively involved in your community by voting is often seen as your civic duty. Sadly voting is a fundamental right way too many South Carolinians take for granted. But there are actual health benefits to exercising your right to vote. Studies continue to show us individuals who vote and actively participate in community engagement tend to report better health outcomes than those who do not vote or engage with their neighbors. So how and why do voting and engagement depend on each other?
If you’re engaging with your neighbors or community leaders, you’re more apt to learn about existing community resources that can lead to opportunities for physical activity and access to nutritious food. So many folks here in South Carolina have resources nearby they don’t even know about. Older folks and/or folks with disabilities may not know there is public transportation to get them to that farmers market. How do you find out? It’s easy! Just pick up the phone and call your local elected officials (you know, the ones you voted for or against) and ask them! You’d be surprised at the resources out there. All you have to do is ask.
Or you can just hop on the web and do a search: “where can i buy fresh fruits and vegetables in my neighborhood?” And boom, you’ll have the resources. If you live in a food or medical desert and don’t have access to these resources, that’s when your engagement kicks in. Reach out to your local leaders and ask them why you don’t have the resources you need to live a healthier and more active life. You can even contact us here at Wholespire! We have huge resources to guide you into a healthier lifestyle.
So while the relationship between voting and engagement can lead to endless personal and community benefits, the key here is your level of involvement.
Your Health and Well Being are Already Being Debated…You Just Don’t Know it
Often there are healthy initiatives already on the ballot and/or being debated by elected officials at the local, county or state level. Healthier outcome proposals like multimodal transportation that provides everyone access to pedestrian walkways and bikeways or new parks or other recreation spaces like greenways and trails: these are debated everyday by city and county councils. You already have access to local officials, which means you have opportunities to develop relationships and influence local policies and development projects. You can attend council or board meetings to voice your concerns about issues that affect you and your community. The question is: are you doing that?
Civic and community engagement are based on the belief that everyone has a stake in the health of their community and that active participation can bring about significant change. Voting alone won’t do it and just being engaged but skipping election day won’t give you the quality of life you deserve. So the ball is in your court. Engage, educate, get educated, be fearless and relentless, and go vote for a healthier South Carolina!
Change can be difficult for many people to accept, especially when they are unaware of the plans to create change or have not been asked for their input. By not involving the people impacted by the change, you risk alienating community members, losing support for future projects, and having less impactful project outcomes.
Community engagement, also referred to as feedback, input, involvement, or participation, means including community members in the decision-making, planning, and evaluation of projects. To ensure that projects and policies are relevant, successful, and long-term solutions, it is important to get the community’s opinions and active participation in the process. Community engagement is essential for policy, systems, and environmental (PSE) changes to effectively improve community health.
The level of community involvement can have a big impact on the success of your PSE project. The table below illustrates the range of community engagement. In the end, it is up to you or your coalition to decide how much community involvement you require or desire, as well as who to ask to participate. Wholespire suggests the following actions:
The benefits of community engagement
Identifies community needs.
Reinforces that a need exists.
Identifies community leaders who can help overcome cultural and social barriers.
Gathers community feedback from groups or individuals who are often overlooked.
Increases the value of the PSE project.
Drives equitable access to healthy eating and active living resources.
Increases sense of community, empowerment, and inclusion.
Creates the opportunity and openness for change and growth.
Improves overall health outcomes
Choose Consult, Involve, or Collaborate. These levels ensure community participation, drive equitable access, and make health outcomes more likely.
Involve people who are often overlooked. It’s easy and convenient to invite the usual people you identify with. Be more inclusive by inviting community members from diverse backgrounds, especially those who will be impacted by the project.
Listen to and incorporate the feedback. Listening to community members is great, but using their feedback is imperative. This step improves trust and morale and encourages future engagement and interest in community health improvement.
Most community health coalitions conduct community health needs assessments to determine what’s important to community members and what they need most to lead a healthy lifestyle. Oftentimes, your local health department or hospital may have administered a community needs assessment that you can request. If, however, a needs assessment is not available to rely on for direction, there are other ways to evaluate the community’s opinions and needs. Online surveys and community meetings are easy and low-cost alternatives.
Everyone plays a role in the health of their community. Get your community members involved in planning and implementing PSE change projects. They will point out obstacles and solutions that might not have been brought up before. And don’t overlook the younger generation. Who better to assist in making decisions about changes that affect them?
For this blog post, we’re organizing project examples by these categories: Activity-Friendly Communities, Access to Healthy Food, Healthy School Environments and Youth Engagement.Staff share their expertise, or technical assistance, within several sectors of community: municipalities, state agencies, coalitions, schools, faith-based organizations and other nonprofit organizations.
Below is an incompletelist of community-level projectsWholespirehas supported with mini-grants. The list features examples of PSE projects implemented by various communities across South Carolina. All focus areas marked with an asterisk (*) indicatea level of partnership and collaboration with local government and regulatory agenciesrequired to complete the projects.
Activity-Friendly Communities
Activity-friendly communities are vibrant spaceswhere people of all ages and abilities can easily and safely enjoy walking, bicycling, rolling and other forms of active transportationand recreation.Communities must be thoughtfully designed and include policies, systems, and environmental supports that allow daily active transportation and recreation.
Focus Area
Project/Tactic
Items Funded
Bicycle and Pedestrian Routes and Trails
Provide adequate signage to improve pedestrian safety
Safety signs, paint and other tools
Install way-finding signage
Signs, posts, hardware and installation costs
Create maps of community/ neighborhood walking and biking routes
Purchase outdoor exercise system equipment/stations
Parks, Playgrounds and Other Recreational Facilities
Provide bike racks at recreational facilities, schools, and businesses
Purchase and installation costs
Provide benches at parks, paved walking paths, playgrounds, ADA picnic tables, etc.
Purchase and installation costs
Improve park/recreational facilities
Recreational equipment such as basketball goals, soccer goals, playground equipment, balls, and other needs
Create inclusive play spaces for people with disabilities
Sensory panels, inclusive swings, and other inclusive play equipment; ramps, braille and sign language signs; accessible drinking water fountains/water bottle refill stations
Improve accessibility and ADA compliance
Rubber mats for playgrounds, ADA signs, ramps, and other needs
Create or upgrade a community basketball court
Land grading, concrete, basketball goals, paint, stencils, supplies to repair cracks on surface
Create a disc golf course
Disc golf backets, disc golf frisbees, equipment needed for installation
Paint and supplies for curbs, crosswalks and other safety areas
Effective Student Pick-up and Drop-off Design
Signs to define areas in drop-off and pick-up zones and explain their proper use
Enhanced Visibility Crosswalks/ re-painting of crosswalks leading to the school
Stencils, paint, supplies
Crossing Guard Supplies/Safety Equipment
Reflective vests, stop/go handheld signs, portable stop/go/slow signs and other safety equipment
Improve school traffic safety during drop off and pick up
Supplies for road surface markings, curb markings, delineators, colored pavements, and traffic channelizing devices, lights for portico
Access to Drinking Water
Ensure drinking water is available in public spaces
Water bottle refill stations, accessible drinking water fountains, water fountains featuring a dog bowl
Access to Healthy Food
Access to healthy food refers to the availability, affordability, and consistency of foods and beverages that promote well-being and prevent chronic disease. Areas that lack access to healthy foods are known as food deserts. Ensuring access to healthy food is an important element of an equitable food system, one in which those most vulnerable and those living in low-income neighborhoods, communities of color, and rural and tribal communities can fully participate, prosper, and benefit.
Focus Area
Project/Tactic
Items Funded
Farmer’s Markets
Establish new farmers’ markets
Sandwich boards, employee/farmer aprons, SNAP/WIC processing equipment and Wi-Fi hot spots, signage, SNAP/WIC promotional signs
Increase access for people with disabilities
Paint and signs for parking, materials and supplies for curb ramps
Mobile markets
Accept SNAP, WIC, Senior SNAP and Healthy Bucks
SNAP/WIC processing equipment and Wi-Fi hotspots, SNAP/WIC promotional signs
Community Gardens
Create or expand a network of community gardens
Materials to build gardening beds: lumber, cement blocks, planting soil, mulch; Water meter and backflow gauge, signage, Gardening tools (rakes, hoes, etc.), tiller
Other food access projects
Provide free gleaned produce stations at a local, public facility
Shelves, baskets, bins and other food storage supplies, chalkboard signs
Healthy School Environments
Promoting healthy eating and active living in the school environment is crucial for the overall well-being of students and staff. When students have nutritious meals and are physically active, their performance and attention span reflect those elements of healthy school environments. A healthy school environment applies to the indoor and outdoor environments of the school and the surrounding environments.
Paint and supplies for curbs, crosswalks and other safety areas
Effective Student Pick-up and Drop-off Design
Signs to define areas in drop-off and pick-up zones and explain their proper use
Enhanced Visibility Crosswalks/ re-painting of crosswalks leading to the school
Stencils, paint, supplies
Crossing Guard Supplies/Safety Equipment
Reflective vests, stop/go handheld signs, portable stop/go/slow signs and other safety equipment
Improve school traffic safety during drop off and pick up
Supplies for road surface markings, curb markings, delineators, colored pavements, and traffic channelizing devices, lights for portico
Access to Drinking Water
Retrofit and install safe water sources
Water refill stations, water fountains, accessible water fountains
Transform the physical environment to increase students’ PA and other pro-social learning and play behaviors
Improve outdoor playground equipment
Purchase PA equipment, such as slides, swings, ladders, and various climbing structures for students to interact with; upgrade basketball goals
Increase the variety of outdoor play options
Add painted play spaces or markings to the playground
Create active pathways in hallways and walkways
Stencils, paint and other materials
Create inclusive spaces for people with disabilities
Purchase grip volleyballs, ringing volleyballs and other specialty balls and play equipment for kids with disabilities, smooth surfaces likes rubber mats
Create an Outdoor Classroom
Picnic tables, benches, and other materials
Youth Engagement (The HYPE Project®)
Engaging youth in community health improvement can be a driving force for change. Through the Healthy Young People Empowerment (HYPE) Project®, youth develop critical thinking skills, build relationships with community stakeholders and have fun learning practical ways to create policy, systems and environmental (PSE) changes. Youth can implement any of the projects mentioned above; however, below are examples of HYPE civic action projects Wholespire has funded.
Focus Area
Project/Tactic
Items Funded
School-based PSE Projects
Mobile Breakfast Carts
Food cart, wrapping for cart
Improve pedestrian and bicycling safety of students
Supplies for conducting a walkability assessment
Community-based PSE Projects
Update a local park
Benches, trash receptables, benches, paint and supplies, park signs
Upgrade a community basketball court
Basketball goals, paint, stencils, supplies to repair cracks on surface
Playground improvements
Volleyball net, disability swings, trash receptables, benches, paint and supplies, park signs
Wholespire provides grant opportunities to communities across South Carolina for implementing a policy, system or environmental (PSE) change project. It’s a concept that can be challenging to explain and understand. To prepare you for any upcoming grant opportunities from Wholespire, we want to help you determine if your project is a PSE change or a program. We also want to help you save time before applying for a grant that will not get funded because it is considered to be a program.
What is a Program?
Programs typically occur over a short period of time and only focus on individual behavior change. They are often considered health education rather than community health improvement. Hospitals and health centers often provide programs that teach people living with chronic diseases how to manage their condition through diet and exercise.
What is PSE Change?
Policy, systems and environmental change make healthier choices more practical and readily available to all members of a community and influence community health and well-being. They are often part of an ongoing project or plan. PSE change reaches more people and leads to more impactful, long-term changes in community health.
PSE Change + Programs = Greater Success
Wholespire focuses on whole community health through PSE change, while other organizations focus on individual behavior change through programs. We support the use of programs to reach individuals because programs and PSE change complement each other and can lead to even greater success than a stand-alone program.
Scenario 1: One-time Event
A municipality receives a Wholespire mini-grant to create a paved walking trail in a local park. They host a ribbon-cutting ceremony on opening day that features exhibitors offering health education information and giveaways for community members. The one-time event is a tactic to get community members to the new trail.
Scenario 2: Traditional Program
A community health needs assessment shows eating fruits and vegetables is important to community members, and they don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables because they don’t know how to prepare and cook with them. The local health coalition chooses to host a free Cooking Matters program to teach individuals how to cook with fresh produce. To supplement the classes, the coalition partners with the local community garden. Garden organizers donate produce from the garden for the cooking demonstrations and give free produce boxes to participants.
Funding your organization’s mission isn’t always easy, especially for non-profits. A lack of direct income means you often have to rely on external funding sources to support your work. This is a good opportunity where grants can help.
While working with a grant writer can help boost your chances of an application being funded, it isn’t always possible and organizations must then rely on their own staff. While grant writing is multifaceted, it’s very much a learnable skill. When people ask me to explain what I do as a grant writer, I’ve often replied that it isn’t rocket science, but organization and attention to detail are critical.
When people ask me to explain what I do as a grant writer, I’ve often replied that it isn’t rocket science, but organization and attention to detail are critical.
If you don’t have a lot of experience in developing grant proposals, here are a few tips to help your application stand out to reviewers:
Follow any formatting instructions provided on the application.
Pay attention to formatting specifications: Does the application ask you to use a certain font or to only submit as a PDF or Word document? Is the narrative (or any other section) supposed to be in paragraph style or bullet points? Is there a word count or other size limitation to your answers? Write as briefly and concisely as you can, and only give the information the application is requesting.
Describe your project in detail.
Arguably the most important part of a grant application is the project description. Ensure that you have narrowed your focus and that your project aligns with the mission of the funder. Projects that are too broad in scope will often not be funded because there either isn’t adequate time or money to successfully complete the project. Here are some things to consider when writing your project narrative:
Why is the proposed project needed? What problem or opportunity will you address? Statistics and solid numbers will help enhance your proposal even more.
How will you accomplish the proposed activities and objectives?
Who will the project benefit? Be as specific with numbers and characteristics as you can, particularly if your project will serve disadvantaged groups such as low- to moderate-income, minorities, at-risk youth, or people with special needs.
Is your proposed project part of a larger project? Many grants are used to move along or complete a larger project. Funders like knowing they are playing a part in a greater effort, but be specific in what phase of the project these particular grant funds will go toward.
Offer relevant background information.
Sticking to a 300-word limit project summary while also being specific is not a simple task. Other sections in the application, such as asking for information on your organization’s mission and activities, are where you can fill in the gaps and expand on details from the project summary. Here are some examples of helpful information to include:
Demographics of the community being served.
Project outcomes: how the proposed project will benefit the community or audience of focus and how you will measure your success.
Sustainability: how will the project continue beyond the grant cycle?
If applicable, a description of the larger project and what stage you are in.
Develop an accurate budget.
Most grants will maintain a maximum amount you can request in funding. Always make sure your budget falls at or below this number (unless you intend to fund the rest, which should be noted with a funds-commitment letter from the head of your organization). When putting together a cost estimate, it’s always better to have line items provided by a professional contractor, online pricing, or other verified means rather than figures you have assumed yourself.
Sometimes a funder may want to see your previous fiscal year’s organizational budget or bank statements to ensure you are operating at a profit and will have some available funds to continue your project. Be sure to include this information if requested.
Define community engagement efforts.
Community support of a project reinforces that a need exists within your area. Explain how input from your community led you to focus on this particular issue. This is also an appropriate section to describe key partnerships. What organizations and groups are you collaborating with, both by way of financial support and in-kind or volunteer efforts? How do you leverage other resources in the community?
Most community coalitions conduct community health needs assessments to determine what’s important to community members and what they need most to lead a healthy lifestyle. Specifically for Wholespire’s mini-grants, use this information to prioritize policy, systems, or environmental projects and include it in the grant proposal.
Often times, your local government may also have administered a community needs assessment that you can request. If, however, an applicant does not have a needs assessment to rely on for direction, there are other ways to evaluate the community’s opinions and needs. Online surveys and community meetings are easy and low-cost alternatives.
Make sure to proofread!
Don’t let spelling and grammatical errors take away from an otherwise strong grant proposal. These types of careless oversights can lead to a reduction in scoring. Make sure to take advantage of spelling and grammar check tools before submitting your proposal.
It’s also a good idea to ask someone else to help you proofread your application. You’ve read through the application many times, so you may inadvertently skip over some errors or not have provided enough detail in a certain section. A second set of eyes could catch something you haven’t and can offer feedback to any clarifications needed.
Wholespire’s mini-grants (and non-profit or foundation grants in general) are very competitive, so give yourself enough time to write a quality application.
Wholespire’s mini-grants (and non-profit or foundation grants in general) are very competitive, so give yourself enough time to write a quality application. Reviewers can tell how much effort you put into your application and the proposed project by the information you submit. Allow yourself the time needed to submit your application prior to the due date.
Adrienne Patrick is the Director of Development at MPA Strategies, a statewide marketing and public relations firm. She is a certified Grant Writer and has successfully secured over $3 million in funding for MPA client projects including local infrastructure, non-profit programming, city planning, and community parks. Adrienne has years of experience in event planning and fundraising for both non-profits and political candidates, including serving as Governor David Beasley’s Finance Director for his United States Senate Campaign. She is a journalism graduate of the University of Georgia.
There’s a bill in the South Carolina Senate that, if passed, would give all SC public school students free meals every day. Sponsored by Senator Katrina Shealy (R-District 23), Senator Stephen Goldfinch (R-District 34), Senator Mia McLeod (D-District 22) and Senator Marion Kimpson (D-District 42), S.148 seeks to ensure all students get free breakfast and lunch by providing guidelines for eligible schools to participate in the USDA Community Eligibility Program (CEP). It also establishes a state-level reimbursement program for those schools that are not eligible for CEP and extends the lunch period to 30 minutes.
“This bill addresses multiple issues that schools, students, and parents are facing these days,” says Meg Stanley, executive director of Wholespire. “I’m talking about school budgets, administrative workload, hunger, poor grades and behavior, school lunch debt, food shaming, social pressures and added financial stress for parents.”
74% of children are income eligible for federal nutrition programs (at or below 185% of poverty)
For the last two years, parents didn’t have to worry about paying for school meals and school administrators didn’t have to worry about tracking and collecting lunch money. During COVID-19, the USDA enacted national waivers that allowed many schools to provide free meals and get reimbursed by the federal government. Now that the waivers have ended, schools are now returning to collecting breakfast and lunch money, parents are having to decide how to pay for and prepare lunches and students with debt are being served a crusty sandwich instead of a balanced hot meal and getting picked on by their peers.
“For too many students, eating breakfast and lunch at school is the only time in their day that they get a nutritious meal,” says Stanley. “If we want to improve the quality of education in South Carolina and make it equitable, we have to start somewhere and that’s with the bellies of our students.”
Breakfast and lunch are important to every student’s health and classroom performance. Nutritious meals provide energy that fuels the brain and helps with attention span, which influences test scores and grade-level advancement. When a child is hungry, it’s difficult to pay attention to anything else.
In 2022, Wholespire published a blog called Everything you need to know about the Community Eligibility Program. It makes the case for eligible schools to apply for CEP. The same benefits of CEP can be applied to S.148. If passed, here’s how schools, families and students will benefit from receiving free meals at schools:
Benefits for Schools
Eliminates unpaid school debt. Every student gets free breakfast and lunch. Families don’t pay and administrators don’t have to worry about collecting money and managing accounts.
Reduces administrative burdens.
Improves school nutrition staff morale. Staff focuses more on nutritious meals and less on the nutrition budget.
Can generate revenue for school nutrition budgets. Oftentimes, CEP leads to an increase in breakfast and lunch participation, which increases revenue for the nutrition budget.
Can make it easier to serve meals in the classroom. Teachers only need to count the number of meals being served to students in their classroom rather than tracking free, reduced, and paid meals.
Benefits for Families and Students
Improves student attendance and advancement. A study published in the Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition found significant benefits for students attending CEP schools, including higher attendance rates and more students advancing beyond 10th grade.
Fights hunger. The same study mentioned in the previous bullet also found students attending schools with CEP were nearly 3 times less likely to be food insecure.
Promotes equity and reduces stigma. CEP eliminates the out-of-pocket costs for families and reduces the stigma or embarrassment some students may feel by participating in the meals program. CEP also eliminates school lunch shaming, as no student can be turned away or given an alternative meal from failure to pay.
Reduces stress for families and students. Families with tight food budgets can rest assured that their child gets nutritious meals at school, reducing financial strain at home. Students don’t have to worry about paying for meals either.
Advocating for health in all policies is a priority for Wholespire, whose mission is to provide communities with proven and sustainable approaches that lead to increased access to healthy choices for ALL people. If you want to advocate for S.148, we encourage you to become a Wholespire advocate.
Over the course of the past few years, corporate wellness strategies have been on the rise, and for good reason. When executed properly, they can not only improve the overall health of your workforce, they can also increase productivity and positively affect your organization’s bottom line. But what makes a wellness program effective, and what are companies doing to respond to the events of the last few years? Read on to learn more.
The Benefits of an Effective Corporate Wellness Strategy
Creating a plan to encourage healthy eating and active living among your employees will benefit not only them but your organization as a whole. Below are some of the major reasons why you may want to consider developing a corporate wellness strategy of your own.
Decrease in Absenteeism
Corporate wellness strategies can help create a more physically and mentally healthy workforce. A healthier workforce is far less likely to miss time on the job, meaning you can all but cross absenteeism off your list of things to worry about as the leader of your organization.
Combat Chronic Disease
A good corporate wellness strategy is a form of chronic disease prevention. With the proper resources, education, and support system in place, your staff can learn to take on healthier habits and avoid serious health issues.
Save Money on Healthcare Costs
A generally healthy staff is most likely going to require much fewer and less expensive medical costs than an unhealthy one. That means that investing in a corporate wellness program can ultimately save your organization money on healthcare and related expenses.
Creating an Effective Health Strategy in a Post-Pandemic World
Just like pretty much everything else over the course of the past year, corporate health strategies have been completely altered by the COVID-19 pandemic. With remote work becoming far more prevalent and mental health issues on the rise, organizations are going to need to adjust their wellness programs to reflect these changes and a number of others. Below are some of the major focal points of post-pandemic corporate health strategies.
● Increased telemedicine and video resources ● Greater access to mental health benefits ● Adjustment to the work-from-home model ● Increased support for those with chronic conditions ● Greater use of public health data
Although vaccines are being distributed and the world is slowly returning to normal, certain changes resulting from COVID-19 may be permanent. It’s imperative to acknowledge these changes in order to create an effective corporate wellness program.
Reaching Beyond the Workplace
Companies have an opportunity to positively affect community health with their wellness programs, too. By creating a workplace that values health, you can serve as a healthy eating and active-living model for other companies and to your community as a whole.
Your company could also take it one step further than that and partner with community organizations in order to engage in public health advocacy. Using your platform to do things like combat hunger in the state, take a stand against food insecurity and health disparities, and promote a healthy lifestyle can boost your community and your company’s reputation.
Ready to incorporate HEAL into your workplace? Contact us today and we can help outline your next steps and provide you with resources to get started.
School meals are an essential part of every student’s day. Research by Tufts University shows that for many kids, the meals they eat at school are the most nutritionally balanced meals they get all day. Why is this so important now that COVID-19 lockdowns are over and people are back to their somewhat normal routines?
Because the pressure of paying for school meals, after a two-year hiatus, is back and creating a greater challenge for many parents to find room in their budgets to ante up.
According to the SC Department of Education’s 2021-2022 student enrollment report, 61% of students live in poverty. That’s based on all 74 school districts in the state, composed of 1,200 schools that serve over 777,000 students in Pre-K through 12th grade.
A solution for parents is to apply for free or reduced school meals through their school administrators. An even better solution is for school districts or schools to apply for the USDA’s Community Eligibility Program (CEP).
What is CEP?
According to No Kid Hungry, CEP is a unique school meal funding option of the National School Lunch Act that makes it possible for schools to provide free meals to all students. That means no more free or reduced lunch applications, fewer administrative burdens, and fewer social stigmas for students to deal with at school.
How does CEP impact families and students?
Improves student attendance and advancement. A study published in the Journal of Hunger & Environmental Nutrition found significant benefits for students attending CEP schools, including higher attendance rates and more students advancing beyond 10th grade.
Fights hunger. The same study mentioned in the previous bullet also found students attending schools with CEP were nearly 3 times less likely to be food insecure.
Promotes equity and reduces stigma. CEP eliminates the out-of-pocket costs for families and reduces the stigma or embarrassment some students may feel by participating in the meals program. CEP also eliminates school lunch shaming, as no student can be turned away or given an alternative meal from failure to pay.
Reduces stress for families and students. Families with tight food budgets can rest assured that their child is getting nutritious meals at school, reducing financial strain at home. Students don’t have to worry about paying for meals either.
What are the benefits for schools?
Eliminates unpaid school debt. Every student gets free breakfast and lunch. Families don’t pay and administrators don’t have to worry about collecting money and managing accounts.
Reduces administrative burdens. Administrators apply for CEP once every four years.
Improves school nutrition staff morale. Staff focus more on nutritious meals and less on the nutrition budget.
Can generate revenue for school nutrition budgets. Oftentimes, CEP leads to an increase in breakfast and lunch participation, which increases revenue for the nutrition budget.
Can make it easier to serve meals in the classroom. Teachers only need to count the number of meals being served to students in their classroom rather than tracking free, reduced, and paid meals.
Who is eligible for CEP?
School districts or individual schools with at least 40% of “Identified Students” are eligible. The Identified Student Percentage are students who are approved for free meals without an application because they are:
Enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the Food Distribution Program on Indian Reservations (FDPIR), or Medicaid,
Living in a household where another student is enrolled in one of the previously mentioned programs, or
Homeless, migrant, runaway, in foster care, or enrolled in Head Start or Early Head Start.
What if my school district says it doesn’t qualify?
Some school districts may not qualify for CEP because the total enrollment of all the schools in the district does not meet the Identified Student Percentage of at least 40 percent. In this case, individual schools can apply for CEP if they meet the required percentage. Contact your school principal or school nutrition administrator and ask them about CEP.
Why don’t all school districts in a single county qualify for CEP?
In some cases where there are multiple school districts in one county, district-wide eligibility for CEP varies because CEP is based on household income. In Richland County, Richland One participates in CEP, so all students get free breakfast and lunch. In Richland School District Two, the district is not eligible for CEP because its Identified Student Percentage is less than 40 percent. Richland One is composed of more low-income families as opposed to Richland Two. This is an unfortunate fact that negatively impacts struggling families, school equity, and student mental health.
Are there alternatives for school districts, schools, and families that don’t qualify?
Provision 2 of the National School Lunch Act enables any school to provide free meals to students. There are no eligibility requirements under Provision 2 as there are with CEP, and also unlike CEP, you can choose to offer universal breakfast and/or lunch.
Non-pricing is another funding option for universal free school meals where schools have funding support from the local government, school board, or private sources. Meals are served free to all students, and meals are counted and claimed by fee category. The difference between federal reimbursement and program costs would have to come from non-federal funding.
