History: The Northeast Community Partners Meetings originated back in 2015/16 and was a product of a grant from the Kansas Health Foundation for community engagement. Councilman Johnson and Atwater Resource Center were coordinators and facilitators. Walkability was a focus area of the group to make collective impact on.  

Reengagement: WSU Office of Engagement received many requests that a meeting for coordinating, sharing resources, and making collective impact was needed. Through the Shocker Neighborhood Coalition reengagement of the group occurred. 

• For our place to prosper, I believe we all have an idea on what needs must be addressed, we are each what makes a town strong. This is to create a space where creativity and innovation can be cultivated. 
• We will raise awareness of efforts/initiatives in the NE neighborhoods, connect initiatives/networks, reduce duplication of services, and improve collaboration. 
• We will be building efforts together to advance the public good. 

Meetings: 

• 11/8, 2021: was our first meeting. We voted to focus on food insecurity and education as a collective group. 

Goal:   

• Optimize the food pantry system by way of experiences and navigating the system.   
• Reduce stigma of using food pantry systems through a marketing campaign.  

We have approached this by first taking a deeper look into the Food Systems Master Plan and seeing how we can make connections through these networks and align efforts with the plan.  

We partnered with Dr. Cure with WSU Health & Equity Institute to take a systems approach to optimizing and helping us with the identified challenges that food pantry systems and users are experiencing.