Members of Voices for a Healthy SouthCoast met on October 26th and November 4, 2010 to further the planning process for involving each of the 17 SouthCoast communities in making changes to promote healthier eating, increased fitness and reduced use of tobacco. The first meeting divided members into three separate groups to address: 1) tobacco prevention and built environment/bike routes, 2) community gardens and food supply and 3) school wellness policies. The second meeting took place with Gail Merriam, director of the Massachusetts Comprehensive Cancer Prevention and Control Program, regarding a new five-year cancer prevention grant for the SouthCoast. The grant will fund a coordinator who will work with VOICES over the next five years to address the high levels of obesity and tobacco use and the low level of physical activity found among residents of SouthCoast communities. These factors have been associated with increased levels of many cancers, and cancer levels are higher than state averages in Fall River, New Bedford and Wareham. VOICES is continuing to invite people from any of the seventeen Southcoast communities with an interest in any of these areas to contact Nancy Bonell at 508-996-9622 X 25 to discuss how they might become involved.
 

(Top row, left and center) YMCA Southcoast COO/VP Operations and ACHIEVE Coach Nancy Bonell hands out planning materials to Derek Christianson of Brix Bounty Farm who is holding his five-month old daughter, Mariah, and sitting next to his wife, Kathleen Christianson, of the UMass - Dartmouth Office of Campus and Community Sustainability and Jessie Cherofsky of Eva's Garden and Our Sister's School as they work on plans for community gardens. (Top row, right) Judith Coykendall, Director of Partners for Clean Air, a program of Seven Hills Behavioral Health, listens as Ms. Bonell gives instructions to the three break-out groups. (Middle row, left) City of New Bedford senior planner Raymond Khalife, Ms. Bonell, Southcoast Hospital marketing and community relations director Kerry Mello, Ms. Coykendall, and Southcoast Hospital System's Vice-President of Marketing and Public Affairs Jim Rattray discuss plans for changes in tobacco sales and the built environment. (Middle row, right) Martha Gonzalez of the Wellness Connection, Southcoast Hospitals Cardiac Prevention Program coordinator Donna Querim, and Fall River School Wellness coordinator Marcia Picard discuss strategies to get SouthCoast school systems to implement their wellness policies. (Bottom row) Healthy City Fall River coordinator David Weed, Kerry Mello, Maria Evora-Rosa, Judith Coykendall, Nancy Bonell and Martha Gonzalez meet with Gail Merriam of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health's cancer prevention program to discuss integration plans with the VOICES project. Ms. Evora-Rosa will serve as the Policy Coordinator working with VOICES to implement the new grant-funded program.