March 2026

March 2026 Newsletter 

Healthi Kids receives Shining Community Partner award 

On Saturday, March 7, the Rochester City School District honored Healthi Kids with its Shining Star Community Partner award for bringing innovative, play‑based solutions that enrich literacy experiences for students. Dr. Shalonda Garfield presented the award to Mike Bulger, Director of Whole Child Health, and Hailey Cox, Healthy Schools Project Coordinator at the Level Up Literacy Conference. Photo by De’Jon Washington. 

Read more and see more of De'Jon's photos—including a dancing dinosaur!

Taking healthy steps for families

Congratulations to Healthy Steps Specialist Danielle Cady of Newark Pediatrics for her work with families. Recently featured in a new video from Zero to Three's Believe in Babies campaign, Danielle is one of many Healthy Steps specialists integrated into pediatric primary care to support child development, behavioral health, and family support. Aligned with our own Love From the Start campaign, we celebrate these and other efforts because we know, it takes a village to raise a child.

Watch Danielle at work.

Good food, strong communities: How we’re advancing nutrition in Rochester

This National Nutrition Month, we’re showing how policy can help kids, families, and communities get healthy, affordable, and culturally familiar food—and how you can help shape Rochester’s food future.

Learn more and do your part!

Partner Spotlight: ROC the Future Alliance

ROC the Future Alliance is a community-wide cradle to career education alliance in the Rochester community. They bring together a coalition of more than 60 systems-level partners including professionals from the education, health care, and government sectors, and parents who are all working toward a shared vision of holistic success for every child. They recently hosted the 13th State of Our Children Address and Report Card Release, an annual call to action focused on improving educational outcomes for thousands of youth in the city of Rochester.

"While this year's report offers a call for continued action, it shows notable improvements across key areas including kindergarten readiness, early grade reading proficiency, middle grade math proficiency, and high school graduation," says Dina Faticone, chief program officer at Common Ground Health, who serves on the ROC the Future Alliance executive committee. "This is a powerful testament to their approach of coordinating efforts across all of the systems that serve our children. And importantly, recognizing parents and young people themselves as powerful partners."

At Healthi Kids, we often say it takes a village to raise a child, and ROC the Future Alliance is an important part of ours.

Learn more about their work and read the latest report.

Celebrating women's history and impact

Last month we kicked off our Culture Corner series with Black History & Black Joy. For March, we’re focusing on Women’s History & Impact—kid-friendly stories of girls and women who speak up, solve problems, and care for their communities. And like last month, there's a special look at local heroes right here at home.

Get inspired!