Off to a Great Start: Our New Parents as Co-Educators Program from the Vita Health & Wellness District and Fairgate Farm!
Parents as Co-Educators prepares low-income, immigrant families to help their children succeed academically. In partnership with Family Centers, Neighbors Link and the Childcare Learning Center on Palmer’s Hill, we launched our small pilot last fall. We’re grateful for generous funding from the Singer Foundation, the Grossman Family Foundation, the Lone Pine Foundation and, most recently, Fairfield County’s Community Foundation, plus additional support from Stamford Hospital and Charter Oak Communities. “We are pleased with the progress the action team has made in engaging with our co-educator families,” says Leslie Sexer, Vita admininstrator. “It is gratifying to get to know the families and to see how much they really want the best for their children and how hard they are willing to work to help them get a great start in life.” Read more about it in recent articles in the the Stamford Daily Voice and the Stamford Times.
National Recognition for Vita
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation-sponsored Build Healthy Places Network just published a comprehensive (and complimentary!) case study on our Vita Health & Wellness District.
More than 500 housing and community development professionals, including Vita’s Pam Koprowski and Vin Tufo, will gather in Baltimore at the Association for Community Health Improvement (ACHI) National Conference, March 1-3. In recognition of his commitment to building healthier communities, Vin Tufo, Charter Oak CEO, has been appointed to the ACHI Advisory Council for a three-year term.
Vita representatives will attend the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Action Awards conference in Chapel Hill, March 2-3, to receive our 2015 award and participate in ongoing conversations about mobilizing community health initiatives.
Stamford Community Collaborative
A hearty welcome to two new members of our Stamford Community Collaborative, Marc Jaffe (CEO, Childcare Learning Centers, and Mike Cotella, Director, Boys and Girls Club of Stamford). The Community Collaborative, a group of local agencies and service providers from different sectors, meets monthly to improve the health of our community.
Is It Spring Yet? News from our Farm
March is Nutrition Month! Fairgate Farm is participating in a month-long, citywide celebration of good, healthy food! In partnership with the Ferguson Library we will present For the Love of Veggies (Sunday, March 6, 3-4 pm; ages 6-10). We’ll also offer Veggiecation, a nutrition education class for young children and families, March 16, 17 and 24. (View the Vita website for dates and times and see the full schedule of activities, all free and open to everyone.) The Farm will soon start stirring to life: Though the spring equinox doesn’t occur until March 20, we’ll start our cleanup earlier in the month. Get-ready-for-planting-season activities include tilling the soil and enriching it with the compost we produced last summer (sort of like “plant food”). We’ll also crank up the heat in the greenhouse so we can get some seedlings started for planting as soon as the weather warms up. Watch Facebook and Instagram for information on Open Hours and volunteer opportunities at Fairgate Farm.
2016 Meeting Schedule
Held at the Fairgate Community Center, meetings begin promptly at 6:30. All residents and business owners of the West Side neighborhood are welcome.
Tuesday, March 22
Tuesday, June 14
Tuesday, September 20
Tuesday, December 20