The Partnership for A Healthier America (PHA) is an advocacy group that focuses on issues related to the food industry, food consumption, and health. 1
Partnership for a Healthier America launched in 2010 with then-First Lady Michelle Obama serving as honorary chair. It has worked with more than 300 different organizations ranging from corporations to hospitals, 2 including Walmart, Walgreens, the YMCA, 3 Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, and the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. 4
PHA runs various initiatives to achieve its goals, such as FNV, a $5 million-dollar branded marketing campaign to increase sales and consumption of fruits and vegetables involving 552 different celebrities. It also runs Good Food for All, a program that provides food boxes of fresh produce to families in 29 U.S cities. It distributed more than 2 million servings of fruits and vegetables to communities through its COVID-19 Fresh Food Fund. 5 Other initiatives include Healthy Hunger Relief, Veggies Early and Often, Pass the Love w/ Waffles + Mochi, Healthier Campus Initiative, Transforming Regional Food Systems and Drink Up. 6 PHA also runs an annual summit where associates and collaborators come together to discuss issues related to the food system. 7
People
Nancy E. Roman is the president and CEO of the Partnership for a Healthier America. Before joining the PHA, Roman was the president and CEO of the Capital Area Food Bank in Washington, D.C. She also sat on the leadership team of the United Nations’ World Food Programme (WFP) as a chair of its Investment Committee and sat on the Nutrition Advisory Committee of the World Economic Forum, 8 a business league that primarily organizes annual meetings of international business and political leaders in Davos, Switzerland. 9 Prior to working for the WFP, Roman worked as the vice president of the Council on Foreign Relations, 10 a think tank specializing in U.S. foreign policy and international affairs. 11
Roman first came to Washington as a press secretary and foreign affairs adviser for former U.S Rep. Clay Shaw Jr. (R-FL), at the time a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee. Roman is currently on the board of trustees of an international NGO called Global Communities and of the Millennial Action Project, 12 a political advocacy group which promotes legislation focused on issues of importance to young people, is funded by left-of-center nonprofits and promotes many left-of-center policy goals despite claiming to be non-partisan. 13 Roman graduated from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies with a master’s degree in international economics and American foreign policy and from Baylor University with a bachelor’s degree in journalism and French. 12
TO SUPPORT ENABLING PHA TO EXPAND A FRESH PRODUCE DELIVERY AND BEHAVIOR CHANGE PROGRAM, MIDWESTERN FOOD BANKS TO ENGAGE IN BOTH HEALTH PROMOTION, HUNGER RELIEF, AND SUPPORT IMPLEMENTATION OF IMPROVEMENTS THAT ALLOW FOR GREATER HEALTHY INVENTORY TO BE MANAGED AND TRACKED – IN ALIGNMENT WITH HER GUIDELINES, AND GENERAL OPERATING SUPPORT
Enabling PHA. To support 58 Midwestern food banks to engage in both health promotion and hunger relief and support implementation of improvements that allow for greater healthy inventory to be managed and tracked, in alignment with HER guidelines. Enabling PHA to expand a fresh produce delivery and behavior change program to approximately 20,000 households across 20+ Midwest cities
With support from the MFFH, PHA will bring its Good Food for All program to ST. Louis, providing an estimated 1.8 Million servings of fruits and vegetables to 3,000 low-income families over a 12-week period. This work will build demand for good produce which is the foundation for systems change with retailers.
$800,000
2023
Oak Foundation
To provide core support to transform food systems to ensure that all families can enjoy the right to nutritious food.
The goal of the COVID-19 Fresh Food Program is to leverage fresh produce to kickstart healthy habits, while laying the groundwork for sustainable, long-term access to affordable, nutritious foods through food retail.
