HOLYOKE – The city of Holyoke has been awarded $110,752 for fiscal year 2023 through a Mass in Motion grant, part of a statewide program that promotes opportunities for health eating and active living in places people live, learn, work and play.

According to Holyoke Senior Project Manager Ileana Carrion, the Mass in Motion grant seeks to prioritize the community in an impactful manner by catering to central objectives of the city. Those objectives have been identified as providing access to opportunities for leadership within the community, access to affordable healthy eating and food options as well as access to active living needs.

“For Holyoke, it is a priority to ensure residents have access to healthy, affordable foods and opportunities for physical activities,” said Carrion.

The city of Holyoke partnered with the Massachusetts Department of Public Health and Mass in Motion in 2013 and has made it an ongoing initiative to continue the work by addressing the root causes of minimal access to health wellness, affordable healthy foods and low opportunities for active living.

Cynthia Espinosa had served until recently as the city’s Mass in Motion coordinator and was responsible for applying and securing this grant as well as past ones. According to Director of Planning and Economic Development Aaron Vega, interviews for the next coordinator are currently underway.

The grant will go toward the hiring of the new Mass in Motion coordinator. There are still funds allocated in the budget to provide direct care and program services including food economy implementation funds, open space and recreation implementation funds and translation and interpretation for various meetings and trainings.

In the meantime, Carrion said the next coordinator will have the remaining funds to implement and evaluate strategies for improving the health of the community at various levels. This includes community agriculture, complete streets, food and placemaking.

Carrion added the hope is that the new coordinator will utilize the overall budget to address many levels of the local Mass in Motion efforts. The coordinator participates in several advisory boards and community meetings and appropriately utilizes their budget to engage underrepresented stakeholders and shape policies and projects that directly increase access to healthy foods, walkability and local opportunities for physical activity in the city.

“We hope that the city will utilize this funding to build a strong partnership with the community and formulate a concrete relationship with underrepresented groups so they can be in the decision-making process when addressing many public health disparities,” Carrion said. “The funding is a steppingstone to support local leaders to implement change in their own neighborhoods.”

Carrion added that the city has seen much success thus far working with Mass in Motion including last month where the Holyoke City Council passed and adopted a Food Economy Coalition to promote healthy eating and address the disparity to access healthy food.

Last month also saw Main Street receiving Mass Cultural Council designation and recognition of the Puerto Rican Cultural District per ongoing placemaking efforts in the area. In June of 2021, the city passed and adopted a backyard hen and community garden permitting ordinances.