Create a Healthier Niagara Falls Collaborative, Inc.

Through its Building Healthy Communities priority area, NYHealth has supported neighborhood-level approaches to improve access to healthy, affordable food and to activate spaces to encourage more physical activity.

To sustain the progress that has been made in these communities, it is important that neighborhood grantees have the tools and capacity they need to maintain and expand their initiatives and goals. Grantees have expressed a particular need for support in advocating for local policy change and solutions and effectively communicating their wins, goals, needs, and value. Strengthening these efforts will help ensure the long-term sustainability of the achievements and place-based work in each neighborhood. In 2021, NYHealth awarded the Create a Healthier Niagara Falls Collaborative a grant to develop a long-term plan for maintaining healthy food access, physical activity opportunities, and social connections in the community.

Under this grant, the Collaborative will strategically work alongside a team of consultants to ensure the sustainability of resident-driven programming in Niagara Falls. It will develop communications, fundraising, and grant-writing plans to help cement its role as an anchor organization in the community. Strategies and best practices will be identified to help the Collaborative engage with and grow the capacity of partners, community residents, and volunteers. The Collaborative will also undertake a strategic planning process to sharpen its long-term direction and strengthen its board and leadership team to advocate for a more equitable Niagara Falls community. A designer will help the Collaborative create new content and upgrade communications and training materials that increase residents’ involvement in community programming and projects.