University of Wisconsin-Whitewater
EN-10: Community Partnerships

Working for Whitewater’s Wellness, Inc. is a coordinated public health approach focused on health and wellness education, promotion, and outreach that supports and sustains programs and partnerships that encourage healthful eating, physical activity, healthy relationships and a positive outlook. Programs and partnerships are built on an ecological approach to overall health including public policy, community, organizational, interpersonal and intrapersonal factors. The goal is to increase life expectancy and quality of life for those who live, work, learn, visit and play in and around the Whitewater community. UW-Whitewater Sustainability Office has been a key contributor to this mission through the Campus Garden project and focus on increasing the number of community and school gardens in the surrounding communities in the Walworth/Jefferson County area. This includes material support through greenhouse access and student labor to provide direct assistance to local garden initiatives and outreach and education programming designed to improve community health outcomes through a focus on bolstering local food resources. This partnerships has led to additional collaborations with a variety of school districts, Fort HealthCare, Whitewater Community Food Pantry, Whitewater City Market, Master Gardener Volunteers, Whitewater GroCo (co-op), and various other entities. To meet the various aspects of Gardening serves to meet the key W3 focus areas: Eat Wisely, Move Naturally, Positive Outlook, and Healthy Relationships. It also contributes to ecological health through improving access and knowledge of local foods and how they avoid contributing to typical greenhouse gas emissions through the traditional food distribution system. Our garden programming also promotes organic gardening methods and educates students and the community on effective organic methods to further reduce the environmental impact of food. Promoting local food options in the community also helps bolster the local economy by encouraging community dollars to flow to local producers through avenues like the Whitewater City Market and eventually the Whitewater GroCo. A food pantry donation program run in conjunction with various partners allows us to provide economically disadvantaged populations in the community with high-value organic produce and connects them with resources to take on more independence with their food security through gardening and food preservation information. This also helps incorporate social equity and well-being by connecting programming and outreach efforts to the mission of W3, which focuses on addressing health issues that can impact vulnerable populations disproportionately. Decisions for how the garden initiative is implemented incorporates feedback from vulnerable and underrepresented populations throughout the process, including patrons and volunteers of the Community Food Pantry (many are low-income and of Latino/a descent or immigrants). Children are key contributors to their garden environments and often make many of the day to day decisions on what is grown in their gardens. W3 and several of our partner entities seek feedback from the constituencies we intend to serve to ensure our programs are meeting their perceived needs. https://www.w3wellness.org/garden-initiative

UW-Whitewater is recognized as an Ice Age Trail Campus in conjunction with the recognition of the City of Whitewater as an Ice Age Trail Community. The Ice Age Trail Alliance, a 501(c)3 organization, builds and sustainas the 1,000 mile footpath that runs throughout Wisconsin and near the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater campus. This partnership offers faculty, staff, and students the opportunity to learn with scientists and multi-generational outdoor enthusiasts as they explore, build, and maintain the trail and restore the surrounding landscape. Further, this partnership provides a campus-wide opportunity for Community-Based Scholarship. Material support is provided through marketing and outreach activities conducted on campus that is otherwise unavailable to outside entities and access to labor pools such as volunteer recruitment programs run by campus entities such as the Sustainability Office. The partnership enables both parties to collaborate and apply for targeted grants to assist in the development of multi-disciplinary projects throughout the campus, trail-related development, and/or signature events to promote campus and community-wide wellness. Besides the obvious focus on ecological health through projects that bring environmental restoration projects to the Kettle Moraine State Forest, there is a social equity component to ensuring this resources is well-maintained and freely available to anyone that wishes to use it for outdoor activities. Additionally, the Ice Age Trail Alliance is notably populated with a multi-generational membership base, which includes some vulnerable populations, that are involved at the Chapter level in many aspects of decision-making. https://www.iceagetrail.org/ice-age-trail-community/ Economic impact of the Ice Age Trail: https://www.iceagetrail.org/economic-impact-ice-age-trail/

The Whitewater Technology Park, embodied in the LEED-Gold Certified Innovation Center, is a campus-community collaboration to provide economic development opportunities in the City of Whitewater. As a mixed-use business incubator catering to startup and early stage companies, the Innovation Center offers traditional incubator services such as office and laboratory space, business consultation, business education and workshops. Our state-of-the-art LEED Gold Certified sustainable facility offers 24/7 secured electronic access, high-speed fiber optic internet, and VOIP telephone service as needed. https://whitewatertechpark.org/innovation-center/