Memorandum

City of Lawrence

Parks and Recreation Department

TO:                  Tom Markus, City Manager

FROM:            Roger Steinbrock, Marketing Supervisor

CC:                  Derek Rogers, Director, Parks and Recreation Dept.

                        Brandon McGuire, Assistant to the City Manager

                        Casey Toomay, Assistant City Manager

Diane Stoddard, Assistant City Manager

DATE:             Thursday, March 7, 2019

RE:                  NRPA Increasing Access to Healthy Foods Grant

To follow up on the administrative approval I received to apply for the National Recreation and Park Association’s grant opportunity for increasing access to healthy food, I wanted to inform you the grant has been submitted.

The grant is a one-year, non-matching grant ranging from $30,000 to $35,000 to build upon existing nutrition efforts, which we have previously implemented beginning in 2012 when we received an NRPA grant funded through the Kansas Health Foundation to develop a nutrition education program implemented within existing summer camps and the Summer Free Lunch Program. An additional grant was received in 2015 from NRPA, funded by the Walmart Foundation, to expand the program into afterschool programming, which we did through a partnership with the local Boys and Girls Club.

The submitted NRPA grant, also being funded by the Walmart Foundation, would help expand the program to all summer camps with feeding sites, which would include the summer Boys and Girls Club sites. The aim of the curriculum is to educate youth regarding the benefits of eating healthy. The grant also had us address a specific area from a list of three options. The area our submission addresses is transportation and infrastructure barriers.  The grant would fund Summer Buss Passes for public transit via the bus system, providing a number of youth who qualify for free and/or reduced lunches access to the passes for free. 

We should hear back if our submission was successful within a month.