[October 18, 2017] |
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UnitedHealthcare Awards $10,000 to Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden for Innovative Project to Improve Health and Wellness in Greater Richmond
Today UnitedHealthcare awarded $10,000 to Lewis
Ginter Botanical Garden, a small business that has an innovative
idea for enhancing community health and wellness in greater Richmond.
This press release features multimedia. View the full release here:
http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171018006409/en/
UnitedHealthcare's Marianne Randazzo (left) presents the $10,000 Community Care Award to Duron Chavis of Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden, a Richmond small business with a new idea to improve community wellness (Photo: Bill Bauer Photography).
The project, "GrowBox," is designed to help provide access to fresh
vegetables for people living in "food deserts" without nearby grocery
stores. The project will be implemented in partnership with Envirable
Grow, a local organization that produces specialty garden equipment.
The prize-winning idea was presented at a pitch competition Tuesday by
Duron Chavis, community engagement coordinator for Lewis Ginter. The
$10,000 award will be used to equip the GrowBox - a kind of mobile
vegetable garden - that can be moved around among neighborhoods in the
area.
Dozens of applications for this year's Community Care Award were
submitted in August and September, and were narrowed down to five
finalists earlier this month. The finalists were invited to present
their project ideas to a panel of business leaders and health care
experts at Simply Ballroom, the winner of last year's award. Along with
Lewis Ginter, the finalists included:
"We are grateful for the opportunity to present the second annual
Community Care Award to Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden," said Christopher
Mullins, CEO, UnitedHealthcare of the Mid-Atlantic. "Their innovative
idea to improve access to nutritious foods empowers greater Richmond to
make measurable progress toward improving community health and wellness."
UnitedHealthcare partnered with BizWorks Enterprise Center and
UnBoundRVA to promote the 2017 Community Care Award.
"Richmond is a thriving community for entrepreneurs, and we were excited
to partner with UnitedHealthcare to propel the city's entrepreneurs like
Lewis Ginter to improve health and wellness," said Tanner Collins,
assistant director of BizWorks.
"With the support of UnitedHealthcare's Community Care Award, Lewis
Ginter's idea for mobile urban gardens will help the community of
Richmond immensely," said Megan Murray, program advancement manager at
UnBoundRVA. "I can't wait to see Richmond residents benefiting from this
program."
The panel of judges included:
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Veronica Nugent, owner of Simply Ballroom dance studio
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Beth Bortz, president and CEO of the Virginia Center for Innovation
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Doug Gray, executive director, Virginia Association of Health Plans
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Jay Markiewicz, executive director of entrepreneurship programs,
VCU School of Business
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Marianne Randazzo, vice president, key accounts, UnitedHealthcare
of the Mid-Atlantic
For more information about the UnitedHealthcare Community Care Award,
visit www.uhc.com/communitycare.
About BizWorks BizWorks
Enterprise Center is a nonprofit small business incubator supporting
economic development along the Route 1 Corridor in Chesterfield County.
They use a Business Builder Program to address the uncertainty of
entrepreneurship and offer office and warehouse space as well as virtual
and co-working options. The goal of the center is to work with "members"
to create and execute sustainable business models that are scalable and
repeatable.
About UnBoundRVA UnBoundRVA
aims to impact all of Richmond by empowering talented individuals from
low-income communities with a path to entrepreneurship. They connect
these individuals to the resources, training, and support needed to
start their own business. Through a competitive six-month program, they
look to identify five individuals who are ready to launch their business
with the full support and partnership of UnBoundRVA. Their
transformational partnership continues for an additional 12 months as
they equip each business owner with the resources to create and build a
sustainable business for themselves. To date, they have supported three
classes and launched 12 businesses in the Richmond area.
About UnitedHealthcare UnitedHealthcare is dedicated to
helping people nationwide live healthier lives by simplifying the health
care experience, meeting consumer health and wellness needs, and
sustaining trusted relationships with care providers. The company offers
the full spectrum of health benefit programs for individuals, employers,
military service members, retirees and their families, and Medicare and
Medicaid beneficiaries, and contracts directly with more than 1 million
physicians and care professionals, and 6,000 hospitals and other care
facilities nationwide. UnitedHealthcare is one of the businesses of
UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), a diversified Fortune 50 health and
well-being company. For more information, visit UnitedHealthcare at www.uhc.com
or follow @UHC on Twitter (News - Alert).
Click
here to subscribe to Mobile Alerts for UnitedHealth Group.
View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20171018006409/en/
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