Place-Based Strategies

Introduction

ALL IN Alameda County’s (ALL IN) placed-based strategies are community and participatory action projects focused on addressing complex social processes that drive systems change. ALL IN has been engaged in strategies across the County, including the neighborhoods of Fruitvale and San Antonio and Unincorporated Ashland.  

Healthy Food, Healthy Families

Our first neighborhood-led strategy began as a community education and participatory action project focused on promoting healthy eating and healthy food systems in two adjacent centralized neighborhoods in Oakland, San Antonio and Fruitvale. Community and neighborhood-led strategies are complex social processes that move beyond single interventions and outcomes at the individual level of short-term change. The Healthy Food Healthy Families (HFHF) Neighborhood Strategy had two main components in San Antonio and Fruitvale: the Neighborhood Steering Committee and Healthy Food Champions.

  • The Neighborhood Steering Committee (NSC) featured members and directors of nonprofit organizations in the neighborhood, community residents, County and City department representatives, and leaders from local health clinics. The NSC met once a month and followed a collaborative process for the above-named stakeholders to identify the direction, actions, and to evaluate of the progress of promoting health eating and healthy food systems in the neighborhood. Historically, ALL IN convened and facilitated the NSC meetings at different community partner sites and virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, ALL IN worked with residents and community organizations to explore the sustainability of the NSC without ALL IN serving as the backbone agency. Through a series of meetings, the NSC decided to merge with the Oakland Thrives Leadership Council’s (OTLC) Community Outreach Working Group (COWG) in 2022. Both the NSC and COWG wanted to explore broader opportunities for information sharing and driving grass roots driven policy and systems change — moving beyond their original charges. ALL IN continues to be an active partner in the merged group and will support the ongoing evolution of this community-led strategy. 
  • The Healthy Food Champions (HFC) are community residents who have a passion for promoting health. The HFCs work through La Clinica’s Community Engagement Hub. There are currently 5 Healthy Food Champions, all women of color mothers from either the Fruitvale or San Antonio neighborhoods. Through the Community Engagement Hub and ALL IN, the HFC’s have been going through a collective process that brings their own knowledge and various cultural backgrounds together, learning new skills and educating community residents on health promotion strategies and healthy eating. To promote the model across other communities, the HFCs in partnership with ALL IN developed a HFC toolkit.  In 2021, La Clinica received funding from the Hellman Foundation to continue to support the expansion of the HFC model into other neighborhoods.  The HFCs presented at the December 2021 NSC meeting and to promotoras in Contra Costa and Solano Counties in November 2021. 

Over the next three years, ALL IN has prioritized expanding the HFHF work into unincorporated Alameda County focused on expanding healthy retail in Unincorporated Alameda County and into South Hayward to explore increasing access to healthy food.  In FY 23, ALL IN plans on applying up to $50,000 to support these food access projects.

 

Garden

For more information, please contact Gabriela Rueda.