Healthy Kids Healthy Communities Grant County
What Healthy Kids and their families are doing right now
October Movie Night
Join us on October 29th for COCO, a great Disney/Pixar film celebrating Halloween and Day of the Dead. We’ll have a healthy dinner, great snacks and lots of fun. Festivities start at 6pm.
Back to School bike adventure
Meet us on Saturday, August 14th from 10 am to Noon at Gila Hike and Bike for a Back to School Bike Adventure!
Family Movie Night at the Commons
Cloudy with a chance of Meatballs! Friday, August 13th, 5:00 – 7:30 pm Bring the kids and what you need to be comfy on the floor.We’ll feed you meatballs for real and show you the movie.
Articles
28 Healthy Snacks Your Kids Will Love
Growing kids often get hungry between meals. However, many packaged snacks for kids are extremely unhealthy. They’re often full of refined flour, added sugars, and artificial ingredients. Snack time is a great opportunity to sneak some extra nutrients into your child’s diet. Instead of highly processed snack foods, fill your child’s tummy with whole foods […]
8 Lasting Changes Experts Think We’ll See In Kids After This ‘Lost’ Year
The COVID-19 pandemic changed all of our lives, but for developing children, its impact may have more long-term effects. “Every child’s experience of the pandemic is different based on their temperament and their home life,” Jacqueline P. Wight, director of mental health services at DotCom Therapy, told HuffPost. “Many children have experienced mental health challenges, and […]
Videos/Podcasts
“beginning with conception, appropriate nutrition is the number one social determinant of a child’s health, well-being and future success.”
Our Mission
Healthy Kids implements policy, systems, and environmental strategies for healthy eating and physical activity for kids and their families.
Our Work
Funded by SNAP and the NM Dept of Health, Healthy Kids NM builds state and local partnerships that expand opportunities for and exposure to healthy eating and physical activity for children and their families where they live, learn, play, eat, work and shop. As a state partner, Healthy Kids Healthy Communities Grant County (HKHC) works directly with teachers, principals, school administrators and community members to implement programs like the 5.2.1.0 Challenge, walking clubs, Walk and Roll to School, school gardens, integrating locally grown produce into school meals and much more. Additionally, HKHC works with local planners and volunteers on trails and open space, Safe Routes to School, ensuring emergency and supplemental food distributions provide the healthiest food possible. HKHC also provides nutrition education, cooking classes, fresh fruit and vegetable (FFV) tastings, as well as support school gardens, local growers and farmers markets.
Some of the things we do
Local Agriculture, WIC Mom Programs, Nutrition Education, Safe Routes to School, Double Up Bucks, School Gardens Eat, Smart to Play Hard, 5.2.1.0 Challenge, Walk and Roll to School, Trails and Open Space, Fruit and Veggie Tastings, Cooking with Kids, Farmers Markets.
The 2021 Annie E Casey Foundation Kids Count study shows that 25% of New Mexico children live in poverty and NM is ranked 49th for overall child well-being. It’s our job as a community to do everything we can to change that—it’s our job to give every child a chance. One of the ways we can do that is to do everything we can to ensure our children are getting enough healthy, nutritious food to eat and enough physical activity to strengthen their bodies and minds.
Healthy nutritious food and enough physical activity is a key part of the foundation of a productive, successful life. We know without a doubt how important health and nutrition is to kids from conception on. Kids who don’t get their nutritional needs met start school already behind their peers who did. We also know that many families struggle to make ends meet and that providing enough healthy, nutritious food for their children is a challenge—an access challenge, an economic challenge, a knowledge challenge and a social challenge.
Alicia Edwards
Alicia Edwards is the Coordinator for Healthy Kids Healthy Communities Grant County (HKHC). HKHC implements and supports initiatives that create policy, systems and environmental changes that result in increased access to healthy eating and physical activity in schools and communities. Ms. Edwards is the former Executive Director of The Volunteer Center and the Commons Center for Food Security and Sustainability, working to end hunger and poverty in Grant County, New Mexico through a multitude of short and long-term projects rooted in social justice and designed to increase individual and community self-sufficiency and resiliency. Ms. Edwards helped found the Grant County Food Policy Council, the Grant County Community Foundation, the New Mexico Collaboration to End Hunger and has served on the Southwest Regional Food Policy Council and the Grant County Community Health Council. Ms. Edwards was just re-elected to a second, four-year term on the Grant County Board of Commissioners.
Contact
Alicia Edwards, Coordinator
Healthy Kids Healthy Communities Grant County
2610 N Silver, Suite 107 Silver City, NM 88061
575-313-3371
alicia@hkhcgrantcounty.org
