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Barnstable County Announces $300,000 State Grant to Promote Wellness

Superior Court House, Barnstable. The Barnstable County Department of Human Services today announced they are a recipient of a Department of Public Health Mass In Motion Municipal Wellness and Leadership grant. The Massachusetts Department of Public Health was recently awarded over $3 million from a Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s Community Transformation Grant to provide funding to eleven new programs in the Commonwealth for Mass in Motion Projects. As a Mass in Motion recipient, the County will receive $60,000 per year for five years to promote wellness in Barnstable County. Mass in Motion supports prevention based approaches to improving health and wellness in communities through implementation of polices, systems and environment strategies to increase access to healthy eating and active living.Collectively, the County’s Departments of Human Services, Health and Environment, Cape Cod Commission and Cooperative Extension share responsibility in promoting social and emotional wellness, active living and healthy eating, and a healthy and safe physical environment on Cape Cod. Several currently underway County-led initiatives align with Mass in Motion in promoting policy or environmental changes in public health. The Department of Human Service’s Healthy Connected Cape Cod Initiative, the Cooperative Extension’s Buy Fresh, Buy Local, and The Cape Cod Commission’s Pathway’s project are three examples. Building on existing partnerships and coalitions such as the Health and Human Services Advisory Council, the Community Health Network Alliance 27, and the Health Agents Coalition, the County is well poised to promote a collective, coordinated, county wide wellness initiative.

The project will initially work with Health Department’s in five towns, Barnstable, Harwich, Orleans, Dennis, and Wellfleet, to promote strategies to increase accessibility, affordability and identification of healthy foods on Cape Cod and improving community design to enhance bicycling and active transportation.

Learn more about Mass in Motion at www.mass.gov/massinmotion.

For more information contact:
Beth Albert, Director 508-375-6626