Wake County Healthy Community Case Stories

John Rex Endowment

From 2014-2017, John Rex Endowment embarked on and completed the first initiative of its kind in Wake County, North Carolina, driven by the belief that municipal governments play an important role in creating healthy and equitable places. The Wake County Healthy Community (WCHC) grant supported six municipalities and their partners to improve policies and built environments in order to increase access to healthy food and active living opportunities, particularly for vulnerable children and families. In 2018, building on our one-on-one coaching and technical assistance to the WCHC municipalities, Healthy Places by Design celebrated the grantees’ accomplishments by writing, designing, and producing the Local Governments as Health Champions: Wake County Healthy Community Case Stories report.

One of the core components of Healthy Places by Design’s work is to help communities across the country advance local action. By sharing the strategies, challenges, and successes of communities that have made progress toward a culture of health, we deepen knowledge in the healthy communities field. The WCHC Case Stories trace the history of the initiative, lift key lessons from three years of progress, and describe the work of each municipality. They also highlight strategies that other communities can use to incorporate health into government programs, services, master plans, and policy decisions. And most notably, the report makes the case that local governments can still have a profound effect on their communities’ health.

“Healthy Places by Design exemplifies the definition of a good partner, and its staff’s experience is grounded in what works and what does not. As a funder, our biggest takeaway from this project was discovering how complex local government and its decision-making processes are. We learned that good ideas are plentiful and can range from policy revisions to built environment changes. However, those good ideas don’t simply happen with the snap of a finger; they must be part of a process that allows for shifts when needed for greater impact. We appreciated being part of that process and will bring these important lessons into our future work.”

GLADYS HAIRSTON
Program Officer, John Rex Endowment