Community Food Advocates, Inc.

In a state as large as New York, a steady stream of smart, innovative work is coming from NYHealth grantees and non-grantees alike that is relevant to NYHealth’s priority areas of Building Healthy Communities and Empowering Health Care Consumers and its focus area on Veterans’ Health.

These organizations should be elevating their work and informing key stakeholders at regional, statewide, and national conferences, meetings, and other convenings. Yet, because of a lack of resources, they are often unable to do so. To address this issue, NYHealth is awarding grants through its Sponsoring Conference Participation in Support of Healthy Communities, Consumer Empowerment, and Veterans’ Health Request for Proposals (RFP). Through this RFP, NYHealth is sponsoring low-resource organizations to attend and present at local, State, and national conferences related to these areas. In 2020, NYHealth awarded Community Food Advocates a grant to participate in this initiative as part of its efforts to build healthy communities.

Under this grant, Community Food Advocates sent two staff members to the 2020 National Good Food Network Conference. The conference examined regional food systems as a driver of community economic development, equity, and ecological improvement. Through presentations, one-on-one consulting, trainings, and solution exchanges, staff members gained valuable connections, skills, and evidence-based strategies for building a robust, effective New York City Good Food Purchasing Policy Coalition. This coalition developed ways for public school systems, city governments, and other large institutions to implement better food-purchasing policies.

View a complete list of conference participation grantees.