“We are proud to be a leader of leaders in the healthy eating and active living sector of public health. When we were invited to take a leading role with this collaboration, it made perfect sense to us because the partnership complements our strategic intention to foster statewide collective success with diverse stakeholders,” said Meg Stanley, executive director of Wholespire.
Since 2007, Wholespire has nurtured and maintained relationships with organizations and leaders across the state, creating a credible reputation as experts in policy, systems and environmental change and thought leaders in public health innovation. A unique aspect of Wholespire is its ability to advocate to elected officials.
Elevate and connect the expertise of its unique partners,
Facilitate learning through information sharing and discussion, and
Involve and engage all partner organizations in healthy eating and active living efforts.
“When multiple organizations are focusing on the same community health improvement strategies, communication and coordination becomes imperative for ensuring our communities’ needs are being met,” said Stanley. “This type of collective leads to a greater impact.”
Improve Outdoor Environments in Early Childhood Settings: Support the efforts of Grow Outdoors SC to transform early childhood outdoor spaces into diverse, naturalized environments that spark play and learning.
Prioritize Physical Activity in Schools: Support SC FitnessGram partners to improve student health by enhancing physical education (PE) and creating more opportunities for physical activity before, during, and after school.
Promote Trail Connectivity: Support the development of a SC trails coalition to increase trail connectivity in South Carolina and promote the use of trails and walking paths through increased knowledge and outreach.
Expand Awareness of WIC: Expand awareness of the benefits and services of the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) program to increase enrollment of eligible participants.
Increase Senior Enrollment in SNAP: Support the SC Department on Aging and SC Thrive to increase enrollment of eligible older adults in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) through community-based outreach and marketing initiatives targeted towards older adults as well as training for SNAP counselors/community workers.
Increase Access to Healthy Food: Support the SC Food Policy Council to strengthen local food systems in South Carolina, address food insecurity through the health care system by expanding screening and referral tools and resources, and explore strategies to address community design for physical activity and access to healthy food.
Healthy Palmetto is comprised of statewide organizations including Alliance for a Healthier Generation, Alliance for a Healthier South Carolina, Clemson University School of Public Health, Diabetes Free SC/ BlueCross BlueShield of SC®, Grow Outdoors SC, SC Department of Education Office of Health and Nutrition, SC DHEC Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity, and Obesity Prevention, SC FitnessGram, SC Food Policy Council, SC Hospital Association, SC Office of Rural Health, SC Recreation and Parks Association, SC Trails Coalition, SC Women, Infants, and Children Nutrition Program, SNAP for Seniors, University of South Carolina Children’s Physical Activity Research Group, University of South Carolina SNAP-Ed Implementing Agency and Wholespire.
Gain a deeper understanding of collaboration! From newbies to seasoned coalition leaders, everyone will hear about new ideas, the key reasons behind why people participate in community coalitions, how to recruit potential members, and most importantly how to keep them engaged. You’ll get ideas to broaden coalition membership while also recognizing the importance of aligning current collaborative efforts with new partners to accomplish overall goals.
Dr. Pam Imm received her doctorate in clinical and community psychology from the University of South Carolina. She began working with community coalitions to reduce and prevent alcohol and drug use back in the early 1990s. As a community psychologist, Dr. Imm continues to work with local, state, and national agencies to improve collaborative efforts in prevention. She is affiliated with LRADAC, the alcohol and drug use agency in Lexington and Richland Counties and is a co-founder of The Courage Center, a local recovery community organization that focuses on youth and families.
“Growing Local SC brings leaders together to create community-based solutions for a resilient food system for South Carolina,” states Project Director Nikki Seibert Kelley. Mrs. Kelley notes, “Local food systems are complex and highly place-based, making it essential for communities to build networks around the people working locally to get food from farms and gardens to the table.” The pandemic highlighted the vulnerability in global supply chains, demonstrating the importance of building regional economies able to withstand disturbances. Growing Local SC brings together agencies, organizations, coalitions, food hubs, and businesses to create a network focused on building systems to equitability, effectively, and economically source, aggregate, and distribute local food to South Carolinians. Growing Local SC is designed to be reflective of the state’s local food system and also includes:
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Food system leaders across the state are encouraged to engage in Growing Local SC by joining the South Carolina Food Policy Council as a member, participating in the annual meetings, and getting engaged through committees, local food councils, and coalitions. Visit www.growinglocalsc.org for more information.
Wholespire Kershaw County, formerly Eat Smart Move More Kershaw County, is making a strategic move by teaming up with Livewell Kershaw Coalition, a coalition based on the premise that all people deserve to live well. We’re going to explain their strategy.
Shawn Putnam, the Wholespire Kershaw County chair for the past six years, stated that “throughout the past, we have been successful in having a diverse team,” which keeps diversity, equity, and inclusion top of mind during decision making. The chapter is also very active and has remained so throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, meeting monthly and transitioning to virtual meetings when it became necessary. Teaming up with Livewell Kershaw County to lead their H.E.A.L. Team has made it easier to involve more people working towards accomplishing the same goals since they are not being pulled in different directions.
What exactly is the H.E.A.L. Team?
Livewell Kershaw Coalition recently released a Community Health Improvement Plan that was to be implemented through three committees: 1) Emotional Health Team, 2) H.E.A.L. Team, and 3) Access to Care. Their H.E.A.L. Team shares similar objectives and initiatives with Wholespire Kershaw County. This is where the strategic partnership with Wholespire Kershaw County came from — ensuring all of Kershaw County was focusing on the same initiatives.
Building on a foundation of successes
Before teaming up with LiveWell Kershaw, Wholespire Kershaw County achieved quite a bit of success in increasing access to healthy choices. They put together fitness circuits at local parks, created the road safety program, and supported the mobile nutrition center through the United Way of Kershaw County. The new partnership between Wholespire Kershaw County and Livewell Kershaw Coalition aims to build on this work and do more, including one exciting project, the 5-2-1-0 campaign.
What is the 5-2-1-0 campaign?
The 5-2-1-0 campaign educates kids and their families about the benefits of eating 5 daily servings of fruits and vegetables, limiting their leisure “screen time” to 2 hours a day, getting 1 hour of physical activity daily, and drinking 0 sugar-sweetened beverages. This campaign is taking place in schools throughout Kershaw County. To add some excitement, the campaign is being turned into a competition to encourage more children and their families to participate.
The competition takes place by having children log their results at the end of each day, then tallies are taken each week, and prizes are given to classes with the highest scores. The 5-2-1-0 campaign was launched in February of 2020 but was halted by the pandemic. The hope is for Wholespire Kershaw County and Livewell Kershaw County to reintroduce this campaign to schools in February of 2022.
Collaborating for a stronger future
Wholespire Kershaw County is a shining example of what can be accomplished when partnering with another organization like Livewell Kershaw County. The projects being conducted now, and those taking place in the future, closely align with the Wholespire mission to “provide communities with proven and sustainable approaches that lead to increased access to healthy choices for ALL people.”
Upcoming projects for the partners include providing advocacy training for their coalition to better prepare them to make policy, system, and environmental change, as well as teaching the coalition how to be involved in project review processes. They’re also planning an expansion of the road safety program that focuses on advocacy for the awareness of cyclists by car drivers and to create safer roads. More projects will be unveiled soon.
If you are interested in getting involved with the initiatives of the Wholespire Kershaw County and LiveWell Kershaw, help is always needed. Active recruitment for the coalition is taking place now for those interested in the mission. There are no dues, just be passionate. To learn more or join the coalition, contact Shawn Putnam at putnam@camdensc.org or find Livewell Kershaw on Facebook.
Wholespire, formerly Eat Smart Move More SC, and the South Carolina Office of Rural Health (SCORH) received a grant from the BlueCross® BlueShield® of South Carolina Foundation, an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, for a collaborative project to improve the health of South Carolina’s economically vulnerable citizens.
The project will expand upon the current work of both agencies to address the root causes of poor health outcomes across the state. Wholespire and SCORH each have a strong track record of using a coalition-driven approach to effect health transformation in local communities. The two agencies collectively work with coalitions in 38 counties across South Carolina.
“We know that the health of a community is about more than the medical care received in a doctor’s office or hospital. The social determinants of health – food access, opportunities for recreation and exercise, safe housing, employment and other factors – also play a role in the well-being of a community,” said Darlene Lynch, SCORH’s director of community health transformation. “SCORH and Wholespire are excited to deepen our partnership and serve rural communities as they work to elevate their overall health status.”
The grant will support this work for four years across the state. The primary components of this project will be the creation of a technical assistance model that includes scalable training and coaching, and capacity building and financial support for urban and rural coalitions across the state to improve population health.
“Over the years, our organizations found that our work increasingly overlapped, so in 2020, Wholespire and SCORH began conversations to create a formal partnership and establish a collaborative project,” said Wholespire’s Executive Director Meg Stanley. “We both view this as an opportunity to leverage the expertise and resources of Wholespire and SCORH to create greater impact and to be a model of collaboration for local communities and state partners.”
This initiative will build off the successes of SCORH’s Blueprint for Health program and Wholespire’s Let’s Go 3.0 mini-grant initiatives that also were funded by the BlueCross® BlueShield® of South Carolina Foundation.
Blueprint for Health allowed SCORH to offer funding of up to $25,000 to 12 communities to bring together rural community leaders from multiple sectors to collaborate on solutions to the root causes for poor health and build capacity at the local level to solve community health issues.
Let’s Go 3.0 mini-grants offered funding of up to $5,000 each for projects that increased access to healthy foods and safe places for physical activity through policy, systems, and environmental change projects.
