Novo Nordisk Community Health Collaborative Focuses on Healthy Lifestyles for Trenton Youth
by Novo Nordisk, Inc., a global leader in diabetes care, is making a multi-year investment in the health of Trenton’s children and families. Through a program called the Community Health Collaborative™, which is being coordinated by the Trenton Health Team, Novo Nordisk is making grants aimed at cultivating healthy lifestyles among grade school children, including healthy food choices and physical activity, along with educational programming for their parents.
The Collaborative will support the work of its member organizations in two areas: preventing early onset of type 2 diabetes and increasing the proportion of children at a healthy weight. Funding will go to programs within four main pillars: empowering parents and caregivers, providing healthy food in schools, improving access to healthy, affordable foods, and increasing physical activity.
Novo Nordisk’s Community Health Collaborative ™ brings together Isles, Inc., The Boys & Girls Club of Mercer County, the YMCA of Trenton, the YMCA State Alliance, George Street Playhouse, GoNoodle, Wellness in the Schools (WITS), The College of New Jersey, and the Trenton Health Team. The collaboration will work jointly on in-school and afterschool programming plus districtwide wellness policies and their implementation.
In a city where 39 percent of the adults are deemed obese and 16 percent suffer from diabetes, the focus will be on fostering a culture of health for students and their families through education, opportunities to be physically active, and support for great decisions about food and nutrition. Through dramatic presentations, school gardening, cooking demonstrations, taste tests, interactive technology, and targeted physical play activities and exercises, students, teachers, families and school staff will explore the physical, emotional, and academic benefits of a culture of health.
“My administration has been working diligently with community partners to incorporate health considerations in all of our policies and planning efforts,” said Mayor Eric Jackson. “We are strongly committed to improving opportunities for our young people and recognize and value the immense importance of Novo Nordisk choosing to focus this grant-making effort on the City of Trenton. We look forward to a powerful collaboration aimed at building the long-term health of our community.”
Trenton Public Schools Interim Superintendent Lucy Feria also expressed her appreciation to Novo Nordisk: “Children’s health and academic achievement are closely linked and this program will help our children and families to achieve greater success and well-being. We are grateful for this investment and the opportunity to expand our work with community partners on behalf of our students.”
“The Community Health Collaborative™ represents a new type of partnership between corporate donors and grant recipients,” said Todd Hobbs, MD, chief medical officer for North America at Novo Nordisk Inc. “It recognizes that we can’t work in silos and that real change comes from deliberate, authentic collaboration in which everyone involved has a stake in the goals and everyone contributes to its success.”
Trenton Health Team (THT) will serve as the backbone organization for the Community Health Collaborative, working with the grant partners and other community agencies that share the goal of improving Trenton residents’ health.
“We are deeply gratified by the investment that Novo Nordisk is making in our community, especially in its children,” said Gregory Paulson, Executive Director of the Trenton Health Team. “This program aligns directly with our mission to transform healthcare for the greater Trenton community, addressing several of our key priorities and helping to lay a foundation for long-term health and well-being for Trenton’s young people. We are proud to work with Novo Nordisk and our community partners in advancing the goals of the Community Health Collaborative.”
For more information about the Community Health Collaborative™, please visit the Frequently Asked Questions page.
