Mid Way Check In! for Healthier Jupiter Mini-Grant Awardees
In 2020, it was the 5th year Healthier Jupiter provided $2,500 Mini-Grants to impact the health of our community. The goal of the Mini-Grant program is to fund projects that address healthy eating, active living and mental health in new, innovative and community-centered ways. These projects create lasting and transformative change in the health, wellness and success of the greater Jupiter community. Not-for-profits, government agencies, civic organizations, public schools, school-based groups, houses of worship, businesses and individuals are encouraged to submit applications. The ten organizations and their funded projects from 2020-2021 include:
Center for Child Counseling - Healing the Healers
El Sol, Jupiter’s Neighborhood Resource Center - The Flavors of the Sun Cooking Series
FreshRx Inc - Farm to Hospital
Girl Scouts of Southeast Florida - Be Kind to your Mind
Jack the Bike Man, Inc. - Bicycle Repairs for the El Sol Community
Dr. Jill Shutes & Palm Beach Atlantic University’s School of Nursing - Say Hello to Advanced Care Planning
Love Serving Autism - RALLYing With Adaptive Tennis
Palm Beach County Food Bank - Marjorie S. Fisher Nutrition Driven Gets Cooking 2.0
Sea Turtle Adventures, Inc. - Just Keep Swimming!
Shifting Gears United Inc. - Weekly Workouts
We have received a midterm reports from the following grant recipients: Center for Child Counseling, El Sol, Jupiter’s Neighborhood Resource Center, Love Serving Autism, Palm Beach County Food Bank and Sea Turtle Adventures. Other awardees have already started to submit their Final Reports. Stay tuned to our Recent News for final reports from our Mini-Grant Recipients!
SEA TURTLE ADVENTURES
Based on the popular movie “Finding Nemo” their proposed project “Just Keep Swimming!” aims to help adults with special needs to become more physically active on a regular basis through actively swimming laps and treading water at various swimming pools located within the Town of Jupiter. The project began December 2020 and includes one two-hour event each month until November 2021. This programs is offered to STA’s existing iCare Program participants.
Jackie from Sea Turtle Adventures shared with us…
Currently, they have had great level of interest from the special needs community interested in learning how to swim and refining their swimming skills. Sea Turtle Adventures has received a lot of positive feedback about the project especially since other swimming related activities (including Special Olympics) were closed for the first 7 months of the grant and they were the only organization holding swim events.
What Are Sea Turtle Adventures’ Current Plans for Sustainability?
They are looking at additional funding sources and potentially raising the participant fee to cover costs if they do not get a grant for year 2.
What Can The Community Do To Help Sea Turtle Adventures?
Help spread awareness about iCare special needs program through social media and word of mouth. Check out their website: www.seaturtleadventures.com. And give them a follow on social media: Facebook & Instagram
LOVE SERVING AUTISM
Love Serving Autism’s countywide programs, including the project funded by Healthier Jupiter, are designed to improve functional communication and life skills, including healthy behaviors, through safely conducted, structured tennis lessons. Participants engage in a hybrid approach a mix of virtual (weekly, 1 hour) and in-person classes (once a week for 30 1-hour sessions) from mid-November 2020 through October 2021 at Jonathan's Landing Country Club in Jupiter.
Due to COVID-19 Jonathan’s Landing Country Club closing access to guest tennis players, we invited our Love Serving Autism families in Jupiter to participate in weekly virtual tennis. Jonathan’s Landing is scheduled to open in person classes for Love Serving Autism in August/early September once the tennis club’s court resurfacing project is completed.
Lisa from Love Serving Autism shared with us…
The tennis families enjoy virtual tennis because the participants and siblings engage in fitness, hand-eye coordination and social skill activities a group. They are proud to have partnered with Proset Autism in Canada and their participants join in on the Love Serving Autism zoom. Love Serving Autism has been fortunate to have a Healthier Jupiter volunteer - Ed Gruvman - join them weekly for their virtual tennis sessions. Lisa shared “Ed Gruvman logs in each week to assist [Love Serving Autism] with coaching the participants. He is an incredible volunteer and we are very thankful!”
What Are Love Serving Autism’s Current Plans For Sustainability?
Love Serving Autism tennis program will continue at Jonathan’s Landing with the support of community donors and in-person tennis fundraisers.
What Can The Community Do To Help Love Serving Autism?
Follow Love Serving Autism’s RALLYing With Adaptive Tennis progress on social media: Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
EL SOL, JUPITER’S NEIGHBORHOOD RESOURCE CENTER
El Sol believes that food and cooking can nourish us both on a physical and an emotional level and it’s also an easy way for us to connect with others on a human level. Through the support of the 2016-2017 Healthier Jupiter Mini-Grant, El Sol created a healthy cookbook named “The Flavors of the Sun” with recipes from 40 community members. El Sol would like to continue to bridge and reach across the table to welcome our friends, families, and neighbors by inviting them into our home (El Sol) for a series of six healthy cooking classes with recipes from The Flavors of the Sun Community Cookbook.
Georgia from El Sol shared with us…
The classes were wonderful and they have Betzy Rega, El Sol’s Health Coordinator to thank for that! Chef Hugo is a wonderful bilingual chef that was able to connect with the community members. Chef Hugo did a great job of getting us food at a discounted price, and there were wonderful prizes for participants. Due to their efforts to save money on food and prizes, they were able to offer a 7th class! On average they had 5 attendees in person and 5 over zoom. Through Facebook they were able to reach about 300-600 Facebook users per cooking class, with some vidoes like the Zuchini Lasagna getting reaching over 700 Facebook users.
In addition, they held a cooking class at the J-Town Farmers Market at El Sol. Chef Hugo cooked up the Cilantro Pesto for Shrimp (page 77) submitted by Cliff Ross and Guatemalan Rice (page 58) submitted by Candalaria Diaz. They had 150 community members walk-up to taste the food, ask questions about the cooking demo and El Sol cooking events.
What Are El Sol’s Current Plans For Sustainability?
El Sol’s combined approach to nutrition via immediate hunger relief, nutrition and cooking education and instructions, increasing access to nutritious food they believe the most effective method to improve the lives and diets of the community. Hunger relief is just part of the equation to improving the health of our clients; building skills, knowledge, and behaviors are also essential to creating lifelong changes. To address these issues we have incorporated nutrition in three of our programs. In 2020, El Sol held 35 in-person and online nutrition workshops/classes and recorded attendance of 1,869 participants.
The support we have received from community partners enabled us to help eliminate food insecurity in our target population and begin to incorporate a more nutritious and educational approach. For our 2021/2022 United Way of Palm Beach County’s Eat Smart grant request we focused even more on the education aspect allowing us to provide cooking and nutrition workshops/classes monthly. We want our clients to be healthier, and we believe that a multi-pronged approach through meals and education will bring about that change.
What Can The Community Do To Help El Sol?
You can inquire about buying an El Sol Cookbook at contactus@friendsofelsol.org. Also, check out the Videos and Cook Along:
Black Bean Soup in a Crockpot (page 21) and Flan (page 141). Both recipes were submitted by Betzy Rega. Cook: Chef Hugo Centeno. Facebook link: https://fb.watch/5AUcijGckj/
Chicken Tacos (Page 73) recipe submitted by Inez Perez Evangelista and Hibiscus Tea (Page 14) recipe submitted by Luz Ma Alatorre Alvarez Malo. Cook: Chef Hugo Centeno. Facebook Link: https://fb.watch/5AUokPJUqS/
Strawberry Fields Lettuce Wrap (page 39), Crustless Vegetable Quiche (page 78) and Low Fat Banana Vanilla Milkshake (page14)– Siobhan Gross. Cook: Siobhan Gross, RN, BSN, CDE - Registered Nurse, Certified Diabetes Educator. Facebook Link: https://fb.watch/5AT-EjkucB/
Zucchini Lasagna (page 119) – Satu Oksanen. Chef: Hugo Centeno. Facebook Link: https://fb.watch/5ATU4iI-Cr/
Chicken and Rice – Arroz Con Pollo (page 61) Angie Willoughby. Chef: Hugo Centeno. Facebook Link: https://fb.watch/5ATOsy4Mnc/
Squash Casserole (page 56) and Corn, Black Bean, Red Pepper Salsa (page 3)–Kathleen Waddell inspired by El Paso Chili Company’s Texas Border Cookbook. Chef: Hugo Centeno. Facebook Link: https://fb.watch/5ASuMdCdI9/
Tacos with Goat Cheese and Walnut Chorizo (Page 108/109), and Fudgy Black Bean Brownies (Page145/146). Chef: Kathleen Waddell, MS, RD/N, LDN. Kathleen is a registered and licensed dietitian in Florida with over 50 years’ experience working in the food service industry. facebook.com/127165427317304/videos/825833748338640
CENTER FOR CHILD COUNSELING’ Healing the Healers
"Healing the Healers” is a topical workshop series that was recently designed to support frontline mental health therapists at Center for Child Counseling (CFCC). Topics include Stress, Burnout, Compassion Fatigue, Secondary Trauma, Burnout and Trauma Among Black Healers, Symptoms of Burnout, The Biology of Burnout, Self-Care, and Self-Care Strategies. The Healthier Jupiter grant will fund ongoing development of a series of online workshops using CFCC’s learning platform. The workshops are designed to support mental health and decreasing burnout in helping professions. With additional funding, the series will be available for other helping professionals in Jupiter, throughout Palm Beach County, and beyond.
Dominika from Center for Child Counseling has shared with us…
They have finished the training, created the staff self care kits and launched it on their website. They have added more fun videos to the content. Through the Healthier Jupiter Mini-Grant they are offering it for free to the first 100 healers from the Jupiter area.
What Can The Community Do To Help Center of Child Counseling?
Share the opportunity with healers in your community!
Youtube Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_vGx3B7tUA
Website: https://www.centerforchildcounseling.org/training/healinghealers/
Registration page: http://events.r20.constantcontact.com/register/event?oeidk=a07ei4w18mv668dc0e3&llr=gh8ueflab
PALM BEACH COUNTY FOOD BANK
The Palm Beach County Food Bank has collaborated with the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) Expanded Food and Nutrition Education Program (EFNEP) since 2014, providing the Marjorie S. Fisher Nutrition Driven (ND) program. ND is a mobile food pantry that provides nutrition education and groceries to food insecure areas of Palm Beach County. Trained multilingual UF/IFAS EFNEP nutrition educators apply EFNEP principles to teach core nutritional values, food safety, exercise and preparation of simple recipes through an 8-week evidence-based curriculum. For this project, PBCFB proposes building off the success of ND in a program called the Marjorie S. Fisher Nutrition Driven Gets Cooking 2.0 (ND Gets Cooking 2.0). ND Gets Cooking 2.0 will include additional incentives: a crock-pot and cookbook that will allow participants the means to cook the food they receive in a healthy manner. This project will increase access to healthy food by providing fresh produce and whole grains. The class would take place during spring 2021. El Sol will host the classes as we have many successful ND series at this location.
Leigh from the Palm Beach County Food Bank shared…
Due to COVID-19, there has been restrictions with the number of people in person at El Sol and the course has not transitioned to an online platform. As such, this has delayed the program start date. As of July, they received confirmation that they will be able to go forward with Nutrition Driven program in the fall with classes resuming in person and funding for the Nutrition Driven program. Next step is to purchase the crockpots on black Friday to take advantage of the discounted prices.
class would take place during spring 2021. El Sol will host the classes as we have many successful ND series at this location.
What Can The Community Do To Help the Palm Beach County Food Bank?
Check out their Take Action Page on their website to find a way to give back that works for you: pbcfoodbank.org/take-action
We always ask our participants, what can Healthier Jupiter do to improve our Mini-Grant Process and/or help our community in general?
Some suggestions this year include:
Restructure the mentor/mentee program. Instead of having a specific person assigned to a Mini-Grant Awardee maybe there could be a “pool” of people, each with their specialty, that they can call upon if needed for help. This “pool” of mentees could be available to all projects .
Each of the Mini-Grant Awardees can visit the other organizations’ programs in the community for potential collaboration.
Continue to communicate often, and keep the process organized and structured.
Send monthly emails summarizing what is available for grant funding and resources.
More bilingual material, like Saturday morning fitness tips.
A focused bilingual campaign into the community by Healthier Jupiter would be a great idea. One suggestion is partnering with Spanish-speaking radio stations like ESPN Deportes or Abraham Segundo to reach out into the Hispanic community to share what Healthier Jupiter is doing in our community.
About Healthier Jupiter
Healthier Jupiter, in partnership with Jupiter Medical Center is dedicated to bringing the greater Jupiter community together to encourage each person to live their healthiest life. Healthier Jupiter is part of the Palm Health Foundation’s Healthier Together Initiative, a long-term, community-driven approach to solving a community’s complex healthcare issues.