First-Ever Healthy Living Grants Awarded to Seven San Gabriel Valley Organizations

City of Hope Support Will Boost Efforts to Encourage Healthy Choices 

City of Hope has announced the winners of its first-ever Healthy Living grants to help San Gabriel Valley residents reduce their risk of cancer and diabetes by making healthy lifestyle choices. The winners, chosen by City of Hope’s Community Benefit Advisory Council, will support seven local organizations in their efforts to help residents eat more fruits and vegetables, exercise regularly, and otherwise improve their physical and mental health.

“City of Hope is committed to a healthier community, one with a lower risk of cancer and diabetes and, to get there, we need to address some of the surrounding issues of health, health care and access that are not in our wheelhouse,” said Community Benefits manager Nancy Clifton-Hawkins. “The San Gabriel Valley has many wonderful nonprofits, government agencies and other organizations that help people on a daily basis, and we wanted to help them take their work to the next level.”

Like the grants themselves, the Community Benefit Advisory Council was developed to improve the health of the San Gabriel Valley’s most vulnerable residents, identifying issues that affect these populations and supporting strategies to solve them. Made up of representatives from community groups and other nonprofit institutions, the council provides feedback to City of Hope on how best to have impact, even as it funnels needed information and assistance to the community.

Council members selected the following recipients of the $5,000 grants based on the groups’ creativity, sustainability, impact and accountability:

• Azusa Pacific University for its Neighborhood Wellness Center’s Azusa Walks Program
• Pasadena Educational Foundation for Sharing a Healthy Start
• Day One for Walk/Bike to School
• Alta Med for Diabetes Group Visit Program
• American Heart Association for Check. Change. Control
• Bike San Gabriel Valley for Learn to Bike SGV
• San Gabriel High School Business and Technology Academy for its Health and Wellness Initiative

“The Neighborhood Wellness Center is excited for this opportunity to partner with City of Hope in our effort to grow and extend our health promotion and disease prevention efforts in Azusa and surrounding communities,” said Julie Pusztai, M.S.N., R.N., director of Azusa Pacific University’s Neighborhood Wellness Center. “The City of Hope Healthy Living grant will allow our School of Nursing to expand and enhance our already successful physical activity program with a novel additional strategy of an individualized exercise prescription program offered by the APU Exercise Science Program.”

Currently, the Healthy Living grants are a pilot project at City of Hope. “We want to learn from this year so we can make the best investments,” Clifton-Hawkins said. “We want our community to be as strong and healthy as it can be.”

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