MEDIA ADVISORY – PRESS CONFERENCE
REQUEST FOR COVERAGE
Thursday, June 18, 2015 @ 10:00AM
NJ State House, Room 109
(Conference Room Across from Assembly Chambers)
125 West State Street, Trenton, NJ 08625
Press Contact: Libby Vinson (609) 577-1993, libby@absnj.com
American Heart Association | American Stroke Association,
The Food Trust and NJ YMCA State Alliance Encourage NJ Policymakers to
Make Healthy Food Accessible for ALL in the Garden State!
Volunteers and staff will gather at NJ State House to thank sponsors of A-4505/S-3043—Healthy Small Food Retailer Act—that would create a Statewide NJ Healthy Corner Store Initiative, improving food access, promoting healthy eating and bolstering small business by putting healthier food options in neighborhood corner stores.
Volunteers and staff from the American Heart Association | American Stroke Association, The Food Trust and the NJ YMCA State Alliance will hold a press conference on June 18, 2015 @ 10:00am in Room 109 of the NJ State House to recognize the legislative sponsors of the ‘Healthy Small Food Retailer Act’ and encourage policymakers to take swift action on the bill. The legislation, A4505 (Wimberly; Sumter; Diegnan; Garcia; Fuentes; Benson)/S-3043 (Rice; Cruz-Perez; Vitale), would set aside $1million in state funds to increase the availability and sale of healthy, affordable food in local corner stores and bodegas in New Jersey communities underserved by supermarkets.
The NJ Small Food Retailer Act is modeled after the New Jersey Healthy Corner Store Initiative—a partnership of The Food Trust, New Jersey Partnership for Healthy Kids and American Heart Association | American Stroke Association—that is successfully up-and-running in several pilot cities with local partners providing small retailers the education, training and other support they need to profitably stock, market and sell healthy, affordable and culturally appropriate food.
In just 3 years, this small, localized public health and economic development strategy is yielding impressive results by increasing people’s access to affordable, healthy food in five pilot cities. It is also bolstering economic development efforts by generating local jobs and capturing retail dollars that would otherwise be spent outside of the community.
Invited honorees and guests to participate in press conference include:
- Assemblyman Benjie Wimberly, D-35
- Assemblywoman Shavonda Sumter, D-35
- Senator Ronald Rice, D-28
- Senator Joseph Vitale, D-19
- Other Legislative Sponsors
- Corinne Orlando, Director of Government Relations
American Heart Association | American Stroke Association
- Darrin Anderson, PhD
Associate Executive Director, NJ YMCA State Alliance
- John Weidman, Deputy Executive Director, The Food Trust
To attend this special press conference on June 18, contact libby@absnj.com.
For more information on the New Jersey Healthy Corner Store Initiative, please visit our website at https://njhealthycornerstores.heart.org/
