UNC Center for Health Promotion & Disease Prevention
Community Designed Programs
Community-designed programs are initiatives developed and shaped by community members to address their specific needs, challenges, and aspirations. These projects emphasize collaboration, inclusivity, and local knowledge, ensuring the solutions are relevant and sustainable. These projects aim to create meaningful, impactful outcomes that reflect the community's values and priorities by involving community members in the brainstorming, planning, decision-making, and implementation processes.
Food for Thought
Food for Thought is a youth summer program dedicated to providing nutrition education and hands-on access to fresh food to youth ages 5–14 in Warren County.
Food for Thought has...
Hosted 38 campers
Partnered with 18 local orgs
10+ field trips offered
Activities include: vegetable planting, learning mushroom growing practices, making nutritious recipes, sourdough baking, a visit with chickens and ducks from Cooperative Extension, physical activities to keep minds and bodies active throughout the day, field trips to local farmer's markets to practice food budgeting and sampling local produce!
Serving approximately 20-30 participants per week of camp, the program offers a variety of activities to teach youth the full cycle of food, from seed to table. In addition to the nutrition education and fresh food access
provided, partnering with local agencies, notably Warren County 4-H and Place-N-the Country Farm, Virginia State University, and Warren County Parks and Recreation, supported unique and fun experiences!
Women on the Move
Women on the Move is a collaboration between the UNC Food, Fitness, and Opportunity Research Collaborative and Fairview Community Watch. It offers physical activity opportunities and nutrition classes to women in the Fairview Community.
Women on the Move
participants...
Attended 120+ classes
Engaged in 7,200+ of activity
100%
have reported
feeling confident maintaining an
exercise
routine
Throughout the program, participants attended 120+ classes, totaling over 7,200 minutes of physical activity. They were able to achieve 80% of the recommended amount of physical activity solely through Women on the Move programming. Also, 100% have reported feeling confident maintaining an exercise routine since their participation.
Achieved
80%
of recommended amount of physical
activity
In addition to physical activity, women completed a series of nutrition education classes provided by NC Steps to Health. Children's nutrition classes were also offered during group sessions in partnership with educators from the Carolina Hunger Initiative.
Furthermore, the program invested in new exercise materials, including dumbbells, aerobic steps, and resistance bands, to enhance participants' physical activity experience. Program participants have also received in-kind donations of bikes and sneakers to keep their activity rolling!
Community Circles
A History of Collaboration...
Community Circles was a program FFORC launched in 2015 where gatherings aimed at fostering dialogue and igniting positive change within six rural communities were hosted.
These dialogues yielded tangible outcomes, culminating in the initiation of our three current community-driven projects.
Learn more about the Community Circles initiative and completed community-designed projects on our Completed Projects page.