ACTIVE Louisville’s Healthy Eating Initiative

ACTIVE Louisville’s healthy eating initiative combines school and community-based approaches to improving access to healthy foods in its three target neighborhoods, with a special emphasis on a nine-block project area in the Smoketown neighborhood. Through this initiative, a local chef is teaching neighborhood children and families how to prepare simple and affordable healthy foods in a series of cooking classes offered at the PCC, Smoketown Farmers’ Market, and Meyzeek Middle School’s truancy program. Neighborhood women participating in the Women and Infant Children Program have a chance to practice their healthy cooking skills at home as the project provides vouchers to purchase fruits and vegetables from the farmers’ market. The Healthy Eating program also organizes monthly shopping trips and food demonstrations for residents of a high-rise public housing development.

These healthy eating activities and messages for neighborhood children and families are enhanced by work on a community garden that will be used as an outdoor classroom for neighborhood schools and summer youth camps. To ensure the sustainability of these initiatives, ACTIVE Louisville is working to develop long-term resources by creating a sustainability strategy and developing wellness policies at neighborhood schools and the PCC.

The goal of this program is to promote healthy eating in lower-income areas of Louiville. The initiative is part of a larger program with the goal of redesigning low-income urban neighborhoods to promote active living.

The Healthy Eating Initiative has been well-received by participants. During the first summer that the farmer's market vouchers were introduced there were over 200 participants.