Building Community Partnerships

Building partnerships within your community is as important an ingredient as the nutritious food you will serve to children. Every community has an abundance of resources. There will be a broad spectrum of organizations, institutions and corporations that want to be actively involved in their community. Many will be interested in improving children’s nutritional health and well-being.


Often the first step in building community partnerships is to shift away from thinking about money as the solution and move toward tapping into the existing community resources. There will be many people who, given the opportunity, would like to donate goods, services, or money to help make your program a success. You can support the process of bringing existing resources together just by asking people to become involved. Remember, people give to those who ask.

The second step is to identify the resources which you will need to provide a healthy, successful nutrition program to the children in your community.