Mini-Grant Recipient Success Stories: El Sol, Jupiter's Neighborhood Resource Center (2016 - 2017)
El Sol, Jupiter’s Neighborhood Resource Center has been awarded 3 Healthier Jupiter Mini Grants over the years! All of their programs have made a great impact on the health of the community they work with.
El Sol, Jupiter’s Neighborhood Resource Center mission is to improve the quality of life for the residents of Jupiter and surrounding communities by providing services primarily to day laborers, their children and families. El Sol envisions a harmonious integrated community in which all people can reach their highest potential.
In 2016 - 2017 El Sol used the funds from the Healthier Jupiter Mini Grant for the Jupiter Cookbook Project where they developed a healthy cookbook containing traditional family recipes collected from community members. They met with the community during events, discussed the recipes and wrote them down. Many of the recipes had never been written down and measurements were calculated and tested. It allowed the El Sol staff and volunteers working on the project to take the recipe and make it healthier yet remaining the flavor. They were able to collect over 100 recipes from about 40 community members. What is great is that this project brought the community together to share traditional recipes with a health twist.
It also served as an earned income project, selling over 100 books alone in the first year, which contributes to the sustainability of El Sol.
The recipes were then used for demonstration at the El Sol Farmers Market and in house cooking class with the Palm Beach Post. The Palm Beach Post’s Liz Balmaseda did a write up on the tamales custom that is a tradition for most Hispanic families using the recipe from the cookbook. They are working on more cooking events with Liz to bring the community together in a fun, healthy way.
Interested in learning more about El Sol’s Jupiter Cookbook Project visit www.friendsofelsol.org or contact betzy@friendsofelsol.org.
This project meets Healthier Jupiter’s Mini-Grant focus to increase availability and affordability of fresh, healthy foods.
About Healthier Jupiter’s 2019-2020 Mini-Grant Program
Healthier Jupiter, a community initiative founded to address health and quality of life issues, for the fourth year in a row, Healthier Jupiter will offer Mini Grants to impact the health of our community. The goal of the Mini Grants is to fund innovative projects that have measurable impact and can create meaningful, transformative change in the health, wellness and success of the greater Jupiter community. The grants will allow civic organizations, churches, temples, schools, government entities and nonprofits to fund pilot ideas to improve our collective community health in one of four focus areas:
Increase the availability and affordability of fresh, healthy foods;
Help individuals become more physically active on a regular basis;
Encourage people to engage mentally and physically to practice healthy behaviors; and/or
Support changes in the built environment and community policies that promote equitable opportunities for healthy living.
For more information about Healthier Jupiter’s Mini-Grant Program please visit healthierjupiter.org/grants. Here you can learn about past recipients, get some great inspiration from innovative ideas from around the country, and submit an interest form (which is required to submit a grant).
Healthier Jupiter is funded through a generous grant from Palm Health Foundation in partnership with Jupiter Medical Center, as part of the countywide Healthier Together Initiative.