August 2023 - Parks & Recreation - 21

al and interconnected way while
delivering services.
Unique hubs take shape when
park and recreation professionals
take action in key areas:
* Building Partnerships: Are any
organizations, coalitions or partners
already supporting community
health efforts? If so, do you
have a connection or relationship
with them? Should you become
a contributor to existing efforts?
Are there any gaps, especially
pertaining to those most impacted
by health inequities?
* Assessing Community Needs:
Are there
clear, unmet needs
that have been identified by the
community? What issues and
challenges affect health and wellbeing?
What information, data
sources, assessments, voices and
perspectives are informing this?
* Centering Equity: Who leads
conversations about the needs
and priorities of underrepresented
and
historically
disenfranchised
groups in the community?
What is your relationship with
them? How can you build trust
with those groups and partner
with them or support their efforts
authentically?
Brownsville, Texas
The City of Brownsville, Texas,
has a population of 189,382. To address
racial disparity in food access
and nutrition literacy, the Brownsville
Parks and Recreation Department
(PARD) leads community
efforts to provide free dietician-led
nutrition education classes, assist
with data collection to build the
case for continued support of nutrition
programs,
promote meal
programs and nutrition education
classes, and distribute food.
PARD partners with
Brownsville
Independent School District's
Seamless Summer Option
Meal Program to provide meals at
three recreation centers in underresourced
communities. The
Brownsville Wellness Coalition is
helping to design a community garden
in Gonzalez Park, as well as
host Saturday programs to engage
families in recreation, nutrition,
gardening, and health and wellness.
Community Wellness Hub partners
also have worked together on a popup
farmers market promoting local
healthy food.
To center the community's voice
in the implementation of their
Community Wellness Hub, PARD
partnered with Las Imaginistas, a
female-led art collective that empowers
residents through artistic
expression and legislative change.
Together, they are working with
the City of Brownsville and local
community
members conducting
community interviews, which
yielded feedback based on two perceived
challenges:
* Local legislation did not address
the real economic or cultural
needs of the community.
* The voices of historically disenfranchised
groups were being
systematically excluded from
decision-making processes.
To address these
community were represented in
the planning of a new Community
Wellness Hub, the New London
Recreation District (NLRD)
actively solicited 22 community
organizations that were a diverse
representation of the community
to join a broad community assessment,
which will be used to develop
a programming plan for the
new Community Wellness Hub.
To support this work, NLRD
part-time
hired
two
coordinators
to recruit organizations and
take them through the process of
hosting focus groups. Organizers
determined that focus group discussions
would center on gathering
community feedback on
programs, resources available,
food and nutrition opportunities,
and cultural development. Using
the feedback, staff synthesized
themes, asked follow-up questions
and developed a program plan
that ensured community members
felt heard and saw themselves reflected
in the new space.
Developing a Hub to Meet
Your Community's Needs
Centering the three key areas of
building
frustrations,
the Community Wellness Hub is
taking a systemic-change approach,
looking at current
policies and
piloting food access strategies that
target both cultural and economic
health.
New London, Connecticut
The City of New London, Connecticut,
has a population of
27,980. To ensure all voices in the
partnerships, assessing
community needs and centering
equity upfront will help determine
next steps for creating a Community
Wellness Hub, defining your
agency's role in advancing health
solutions and combating social
inequities
within
your community.
For more strategies on developing
a Community Wellness
Hub, visit nrpa.org/Community
WellnessHubs.
Maureen Neumann is Senior Program
Manager at NRPA (mneumann@nrpa.org).
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| Parks & Recreation
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http://www.nrpa.org/CommunityWellnessHubs http://www.nrpa.org/CommunityWellnessHubs
August 2023 - Parks & Recreation

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