Partnerships help create and sustain healthier communities.

Let’s Go! works in many settings and obesity is a disease that has many causes, making partnerships crucial to our success. We cannot do this important work alone!

2020 presented Let’s Go! with opportunities to strengthen collaborations with other statewide organizations and content experts in the areas of school nutrition, school wellness and healthcare.

School Nutrition

Let’s Go! teamed up with Maine SNAP-Ed, an organization that provides community-based nutrition education and Full Plates Full Potential, a coalition working to end child hunger in Maine, to launch a coordinated social media campaign called #SchoolMeals4ME, with the goal to increase awareness of the benefits of school meals while also supporting local school nutrition programs. This collaborative campaign reached more than 4,300 Mainers at the start of the 2020 school year.

School Wellness

As the pressures of COVID-19 were mounting, Let’s Go! joined forces with the Maine Department of Education, Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, University of Maine Cooperative Extension, WinterKids, Full Plates Full Potential, Teens to Trails, Fuel Up to Play 60, and Maine SNAP-Ed to send a powerful letter in support of student and staff physical, mental, and emotional health to superintendents across Maine and Carroll County, NH. Additionally, the letter encouraged schools to incorporate healthy habits into their learning environments, whether students are learning in person or remotely due to COVID-19 and that Let’s Go! is here to help them with these efforts.

Healthcare

Building on the success of the Maine Obesity Advisory Committee, formed as a result of the Maine Prevention Services Initiative, Let’s Go! joined the statewide obesity and cancer workgroup with partners from the American Cancer Society, Dempsey Center, MaineHealth, Maine Cancer Foundation, Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Maine Public Health Association, Portland Public Health, and the YMCA. The work of this group led to the decision to focus the 2020 Let’s Go! National Obesity Conference on the connection between cancer and obesity which reached 90 public health and healthcare professionals.

Hands on Cooking Classes to Support Medical Visits

Our relationship with food is complicated, and integrating the dietary changes that are recommended by our healthcare team is not always a straightforward process. After years of talking to patients about shifting their diets in gradual ways to support health goals, we decided to look at different strategies to support patients and their families in a more direct way to facilitate dietary change. Some common challenges that families face include food selectivity, lack of experience with healthy cooking techniques, inability to test new foods at home because of family budgetary concerns, confusion around label reading, and how to select the healthiest foods.

The Cooking Matters program, organized by the Good Shepard Food Bank, and supported by Hannaford Corporation is run by community chef volunteers, AMERICORP workers, SNAP-Ed Nutrition Educators, and others in the community. It is a series of 2-hour classes, held once a week, for six weeks. The classes provide nutrition education, meal planning, shopping, and cooking advice. Participants work in a hands-on way, with support from those with culinary and nutrition training, to prepare a simple, healthy, cost conscious meal. The goal is to change behavior. Families are given extra food supplies after the class to continue to practice their new skills and new recipes. When COVID struck, classes transitioned to a virtual format. It has been successful because many families struggled to find time to attend in person. Another benefit is that families are cooking in their own kitchens with their own utensils.

Carrie Gordon, MD
MMC Weight and Wellness
and Let’s Go! Clinical Advisor

School Nutrition

Let’s Go! teamed up with Maine SNAP-Ed, an organization that provides community-based nutrition education and Full Plates Full Potential, a coalition working to end child hunger in Maine, to launch a coordinated social media campaign called #SchoolMeals4ME, with the goal to increase awareness of the benefits of school meals while also supporting local school nutrition programs. This collaborative campaign reached more than 4,300 Mainers at the start of the 2020 school year.

Hands on Cooking Classes to Support Medical Visits

Our relationship with food is complicated, and integrating the dietary changes that are recommended by our healthcare team is not always a straightforward process. After years of talking to patients about shifting their diets in gradual ways to support health goals, we decided to look at different strategies to support patients and their families in a more direct way to facilitate dietary change. Some common challenges that families face include food selectivity, lack of experience with healthy cooking techniques, inability to test new foods at home because of family budgetary concerns, confusion around label reading, and how to select the healthiest foods.

The Cooking Matters program, organized by the Good Shepard Food Bank, and supported by Hannaford Corporation is run by community chef volunteers, AMERICORP workers, SNAP-Ed Nutrition Educators, and others in the community. It is a series of 2-hour classes, held once a week, for six weeks. The classes provide nutrition education, meal planning, shopping, and cooking advice. Participants work in a hands-on way, with support from those with culinary and nutrition training, to prepare a simple, healthy, cost conscious meal. The goal is to change behavior. Families are given extra food supplies after the class to continue to practice their new skills and new recipes. When COVID struck, classes transitioned to a virtual format. It has been successful because many families struggled to find time to attend in person. Another benefit is that families are cooking in their own kitchens with their own utensils.

Carrie Gordon, MD
MMC Weight and Wellness
and Let’s Go! Clinical Advisor