Food Bank of Western New York, 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 2019, NYHealth awarded the Food Bank of Western New York (FBWNY) a grant to participate in this initiative as part of its efforts to build healthier communities.

Under this grant, FBWNY sent two members to attend the Closing the Hunger Gap Conference. This conference places particular importance on teaching story-based strategies, and attendees learn how to capture and frame powerful narratives around issues of hunger and poverty. Attending this conference helped FBWNY to share its own diverse client stories and strengthen client-centered community health interventions.

View a complete list of conference participation grantees.