Commit to Fit

Commit to Fit provides nutrition, physical activity, and healthy food access programming throughout Flint and Genesee County with a focus on disadvantaged communities and a commitment to forging strong relationships with community-based organizations (CBOs) and residents. Its nutrition education combines the SNAP-Ed Fork and the Road and The Learning Kitchen interventions with the Cooking with Kids program, which demonstrates to residents of all ages how to eat healthily on a budget, how to incorporate produce unique to Michigan into their diets, and how small changes in what they eat can make huge differences in their health.

Likewise, Commit to Fit’s physical activity education combines the SNAP-Ed Rec-ConnectTM intervention with Tai Chi for Arthritis and Fall Prevention classes to introduce residents to a wide variety of enjoyable physical activities for people of all levels of ability and interest. Our health educators encourage participants to be active daily and teach them that even the smallest amounts of consistent physical activity can improve their level of wellness. Commit to Fit also offers three wellness challenges throughout the year where students, businesses, and residents can have fun and win prizes by being more physically active.

Commit to Fit works to increase residents’ access to fresh, culturally preferred, healthy, local, and affordable food (or appropriate food) by partnering with the food pantries, food distribution sites, and meal sites that comprise the supplemental and emergency food system in Genesee County. Those organizations that provide food to our most vulnerable residents at critical times in their lives, receive networking assistance from Commit to Fit that allows them to provide each other with mutual support and resources. This includes the sharing of surplus food, which has the additional benefit of preventing food waste in the community.

Commit to Fit also improves food access by providing all manner of assistance – including grant-based funding and technical support – to CBOs that operate community gardens and urban farms in disadvantaged neighborhoods or at locations that serve them. The produce grown by those organizations is selected based on community needs and helps them provide appropriate food to their neighbors.

One of GFHC’s two missions is to improve the health status of its residents. Through the efforts listed above, Commit to Fit meets that challenge by promoting and supporting healthier eating, increased physical activity, and improved access for everyone living, working, learning, and playing in Flint and Genesee County.

This project was funded in whole or in part by the USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education through the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and the Michigan Fitness Foundation. Click here to view the religious non-discrimination statement. This institution is an equal opportunity provider.