Project Summary

View My Application

In Maricopa County, Arizona, Resources for Health Roots & Shoots families take action to care for the environment and all living creatures. Through "Pollution Solutions" they engage other families in dialogue while children decorate reusable cotton shopping bags to take home and use.

About me

I have always wanted to help people. Upon graduating from Cornell, I pursued my Master of Social Work at Columbia. After working with families in inner city neighborhoods, I returned to school for my Master of Public Health from Yale, determined to learn how to better make a difference. My thesis, "Comprehensive School Health Promotion for At-Risk Youth," led to the formation of Resources for Health, a 501(c)(3) grassroots organization using an ecological model for health promotion, focusing on the environmental and social conditions of health as well as individual behavior. RFH was barely underway before a growing family diverted my complete attention to full-time motherhood. I am a stay at home mom to five beautiful children who were between the ages of 4 months and 6 years when those earliest conversations about pollution and children took place at the park. In the past year, with my children now between the ages of 4 and 11 years, it occurred to me that our grassroots R&S community would be a perfect fit within RFH. Nonprofit status has enabled us to obtain a few small project specific grants. This year, I received a 2006 Governor's Volunteer Service Award for my leadership role in RFH R&S. While my skills in project coordination and group facilitation, never realized in the professional world, are a great asset to making RFH R&S a success, all of our work is very much a community effort created from dialogue among families who share a passion for common causes.