A $50,000 Iowa Healthcare Collaborative grant will allow a partnership of Grinnell-based organizations to launch a communitywide health initiative, which will begin with two projects aimed at making food more available. The focus of the Healthy Grinnell initiative is to bring partners together to discuss and address social factors that benefit the health and well-being of local residents outside of a clinic setting. Those social factors include food access, income, housing, transportation, education and the environment. The initiative was conceived by a group of local leaders, including Steve Langerud, executive director of retirement community Mayflower Community, with UnityPoint Health-Grinnell Regional Medical Center board members Al Maly, Bill Menner and Dave Stoakes, and Jennifer Paisley, a GRMC internal medicine physician. An initial project will provide food to individuals with chronic illness who are determined by a physician to be hungry. Meanwhile, the Mayflower Community will use part of the grant to launch its “Open Dining” program, which will make meals available to residents at all times, not at predetermined times. For more information or to offer assistance to Healthy Grinnell, contact Steve Langerud at the Mayflower Community at 641-236-6151.