Population: 35,279
Project focus: Access to foods that support healthy eating patterns
Access to health services
Goals:
- Increase capacity to facilitate systems, environment, and policy change to advance health equity in Greenbrier County utilizing a social determinant of health and common agenda framework
- Develop Meadow River Valley Community Center Campus in Rupert as hub to advance health equity in the region
- Develop West Virginia Health Connection “clinic/community linkage” system locally to connect local healthcare organizations, providers, and patients with evidence-based health promotion workshop opportunities in the community
- Grow CDSM and CDSMP programs throughout the region to support residents’ ability to manage chronic health conditions
Approaches and Partners
Greenbrier County Health Alliance, along with The West Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine — Center for Rural and Community Health, Greenbrier County Commission, Meadow River Valley Early Childhood Learning Center (aka the Marvel Center), Meadow River Valley Association, WVU Greenbrier County Extension Service, and West Virginia University Office of Health Services Research, supported community members to develop resident-led projects that addressed community needs related to accessing food and health services. The Greenbrier County project team disbursed mini grants focused on health equity, along with training, resources, and support to "community ambassadors" as part of their Community Ambassador Project. Their mini grants supported efforts to increase power and leadership capacity in communities and incubate evidence-informed community projects focused on health equity.
Successes (as of September 2022)
The project team also supported their partner organizations--Meadow River Valley Association and the Marvel Center--with the development of the Meadow River Valley Community Center, a formerly shuttered school campus that now houses an early childhood learning center and soon-to-be Head Start program, a youth gymnasium and sports league, a family resource center, and is in the process of building out a community clinic which will house a new branch of the Robert C Byrd Clinic (a federally designated not-for-profit rural health clinic), and two floors of low-income senior housing.
During this reporting period, Marvel grew and strengthened their early childhood and afterschool programs. The Center’s "central kitchen" has been fully renovated and is now producing meals for their early childhood and afterschool and other community programs and will be ready to provide federally reimbursable meals to seniors living on campus. They also built a campus garden which is being used to provide hands-on food production and nutrition lessons to Marvel students and to grow food for the Marvel kitchen.
Snapshot 1 (July - December 2020) | Snapshot 2 (January - June 2021) | Snapshot 3 (July - December 2021)
Resources:
Check out NACo's interviews with each of the the 10 county-based teams, including Greenbrier County.