With this lack of access to health-centered resources in mind, The Conservation Fund’s Resourceful Communities program launched Try This NC, a website designed to help rural North Carolinians find ways to incorporate healthy choices into their daily lives. The website, which launched in March 2018, uses the model of Try This West Virginia and includes dozens of easily accessible strategies to promote health in rural North Carolina communities.

Resourceful Communities has been working with people in rural areas for so long, and they recognize what people want to do for their community and what they need to make that happen. I really love that we get to uplift the amazing work that our partners are doing, and really showcase that and give a presence them online through Try This NC.

—Emma Parrish, Rural Health Strategist (AmeriCorpsVISTA)

I think it captures RCP’s mission of thinking broadly about how your work impacts the greater community, the economy and the environment. RCP is also really good about developing partnerships and networks. Try This NC is a next step in that ability to form partnerships and connect people.

OUR VISION

Resourceful Communities, in partnership with AmeriCorps VISTA and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina Foundation, worked with rural leaders in North Carolina to come up with a list of topics they’d like to see featured on the site. The site includes five categories—Healthy Eating, Active Living, Focus on Community, Managing and Preventing Disease and Increase Food Access—and each category has multiple suggestions and ideas. Under Healthy Eating, for instance, residents can find built-out plans for taking kids on local food field trips, hosting a free cooking class, and launching a free vegetable box service to members of their community. Each example on the site has been tried and tested by a rural community group.

I think [Try This NC] captures Resourceful Communities' mission of thinking broadly about how your work impacts the greater community, the economy and the environment. Resurceful Communities is also really good about developing partnerships and networks. Try This NC is a next step in that ability to form partnerships and connect people.

—Salem Carriker, Rural Health Strategist (AmeriCorpsVISTA)

WHY THIS PROJECT MATTERS

The fact that rural communities struggle to maintain healthy lifestyles may seem counter-intuitive: With all that open space and farmland, rural children must play outside and eat fresh food all the time, right? The reality is different. In North Carolina, only 41% of NC youth live in neighborhoods with any kind of facility that can be used for physical activity, such as parks, playgrounds, community centers, walking paths, or sidewalks.

Meanwhile, many of the nation’s healthy living recommendations come from big cities. While some of these recommendations can be adapted to rural residents, lack of access to public transit, nearby grocery stores and recreation areas means urban-centric health recommendations don’t always apply to rural residents. With Try This NC, rural North Carolinians have a healthy living resource that’s created with the help of their peers and tailored specifically to them.

We believe that efforts like this are critical for the conservation movement, because they’re how you reconnect people to environmental stewardship and the land. The overall effort is helping to improve community health, but really, it’s helping rural residents improve their quality of life by connecting them to their environment.

—Kathleen Marks, North Carolina Director, Resourceful Communities

Check out some of the ideas on Try This NC’s platform:

LEARN MORE

• Try This NC