On November 21, 2009, the Sacramento Building Healthy Communities collaborative hosted two events in Oak Park and South Sacramento, designed to educate communities on the 10-year Building Healthy Communities (BHC) process. Earlier this year, the California Endowment awarded funding to 14 communities over ten years as part of their Building Healthy Communities program. This effort was designed to infuse at least $10 million into each community to bring about systemic change. The efforts are to be driven by four goals:

• Health systems are family-centered and prioritize prevention.
• Schools anchor communities, promote healthy behaviors and are a gateway for resources and services.
• Human services systems are family-centered, prioritize prevention and promote opportunities for children, young adults and their families.
• Improved physical, social and economic environments in local communities.

South Sacramento was chosen by the Endowment as one of the target communities. The area includes all of Oak Park, Fruitridge Manor, Elder Creek, and parts of Curtis Park, Tahoe Park and both incorporated and unincorporated areas of South Sacramento.

Since March 2009, the collaborative has been working to put together the 10 year strategic plan for the area. Initial outreach has targeted 5,000 residents through community events, talking circles and surveys to gauge the communities’ views about their neighborhoods. Other activities have included several working groups that are focused on Infrastructure and Assets, Health Access and Youth Development..

In an industry where foundations often change funding focus every 5 years or so, the Endowment’s 10 year commitment marks an opportunity for communities to pull together long-term comprehensive planning and corresponding actions that can improve public environmental quality and health, as well as, the built environment and healthy food access to traditionally underserved communities.

This process provides a unique opportunity for this highly diverse and vibrant area that has been plagued by crime, obesity, foreclosures and disinvestment for decades. It allows the target communities to leverage the Endowment’s resources to attract additional private and public sector funding and technical assistance. In addition, the BHC initiative will help to increase civic pride and build bridges across ethnic, cultural and economic divides that have been historically difficult to create and sustain.

However, the greatest opportunity of this process will be achieved by deep and meaningful involvement of the residents, local business owners and community-based organizations themselves. As this process moves forward, outreach and resources need to continue to have significant and long term impact on these groups that ensures public safety, generates jobs, minimizes displacement, increases access to public transportation, makes streets safer for walking and biking, improves energy efficiency and rehabilitates and creates affordable housing that is of high quality.

Finally, my 5 year old son Miles attended the November 21st gathering in Oak Park with me and told the all adult working group that he wanted safer parks. Many comments had been made to that point, but none discussed the safety of our parks. Many of us take for granted the fact that our children lack safe areas in the community for recreation that they can access at all times. We must foster these activities and make them safe, clean, accessible and with many eyes on the parks and streets to ensure security.

In the end, it is all about our children. As we lay the building blocks for the future we must ensure that what we build today creates a path toward a greater quality of life for the next generation.

This selection originally appeared on the Ubuntu Green blog.  http://blog.ubuntugreen.org/