NORTHAMPTON — In an effort to fight regional food insecurity, Cooley Dickinson Health Care will partner with three community organizations to develop a countywide food policy council after receiving a $555,555 state grant.
Cooley Dickinson along with the Northampton-based Collaborative for Educational Services, the Hilltown Community Health Center and the Hilltown Community Development Corporation, plan to develop a Hampshire County Food Policy Council with the money, according to Jeff Harness, director of community health and government relations at Cooley Dickinson.
The funding comes from the state Health Policy Commission’s Moving Massachusetts Upstream (MassUP) Investment Program, which aims to reduce health inequities across the state. The food policy council will be a collaboration between various community stakeholders and existing organizations across the county that will work together to create and implement projects focused on combating food insecurity in the region, Harness said.
The food policy council will “create a structure where people can participate and begin to shape, in this case, the food environment that we all depend on,” Harness said, and “that the food system, as we engage with people and help reshape it, will be more in alignment with what people’s values are and what their day to day needs are.”
A 2019 study from Feeding America, a nonprofit network of over 200 food banks, reported that 9.6% of Hampshire County residents are estimated to be food insecure. Citing a food access map from the Pioneer Valley Planning Commission, Cooley Dickinson also noted that there are no supermarkets within a 20-minute drive of anyone living in the Hilltowns.
Cooley Dickinson has worked with the Collaborative for Educational Services in fighting regional food insecurity in the past as CES has run Healthy Hampshire, a state-funded initiative focused on improving people’s health, Harness said. The idea to create a food policy council came out of a food access assessment the two groups did together a few years ago, he said. The Collaborative for Educational Services also helped develop the Hilltown Mobile Market, a project which Cooley Dickinson partnered on.
“We have long wanted to do the food policy council but did not have the financial backing to get that off the ground,” Harness said. “So this grant … provided the perfect opportunity.”
The health care system in 2019 released a Community Health Needs Assessment in which a lack of transportation and access to healthy foods were identified as some of the high-priority determinants impacting health in Cooley Dickinson’s service area. Joanne Marqusee, president and chief executive officer at Cooley Dickinson Health Care, said since issues such as food insecurity intersect with health, the food policy council’s mission of improving food access aligns with health care provider’s of keeping people well.
“We see our mission as extending beyond giving terrific care to people who show up at our doors — we see it as improving the health of the community,” Marqusee said.
Kim Savery, director of community programs at the Hilltown Community Health Center, said she envisions the food policy council reaching out to organizations around the area, such as the Hilltown Food Council, to combine resources and create more a more effective response to regional food insecurity.
“We’ve really been trying to figure out: ‘How can we pull all these different things that are happening together?’” Savery said. “And this opportunity afforded that. So it’s really exciting.”
Membership to the food policy council will be open to any individual with a stake in Hampshire County, Harness said. There will be a governance structure to the council, he said, though that’s still being planned. Caitlin Marquis, Healthy Hampshire coordinator at the Collaborative of Educational Services, said residents experiencing food insecurity will have opportunities to assume leadership positions on the new council.
Programming might include an expansion of mobile markets, expanded opportunities for farmers’ markets and community gardening, Harness said, adding these initiatives have also yet to be finalized.
“There will be lots of conversation and lots of opportunity for residents and agencies to come together to make those decisions,” Harness said.
Harness said the grant lasts for three years and that September will likely mark the beginning of a six month planning process that will be followed by a two-and-a-half year phase in which implementation of programming will begin. But even though funding for the county’s food policy council expires after that time, Harness said he’s optimistic the impact it will make will last even longer.
“When we create an infrastructure like this, we’re really doing it with the long vision in mind, because it serves a critical need,” Harness. “We envision not only the (council), but the projects that it spawns, to serve people for a long period of time.”
Michael Connors can be reached at mconnors@gazettenet.com.