Roxbury is one of over sixty locations throughout Massachusetts that received the Mass in Motion grant from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health. Mass in Motion is a policy, systems, and environmental change initiative to improve physical activity and healthy eating at the community level. Policy, systems, and environmental change approaches seek to go beyond programming and into the systems that influence the structures in which we live, work, and play.

Roxbury in Motion is a coalition of community partners and residents working on three project areas: urban growing, active transit, and complete streets.

Urban growing: Working on a policy at the city level to increase community garden spaces by including them in new developments.

Active transit: Partnering with the City of Boston to advocate for the Dudley Square Complete Streets Project to include safe, accessible infrastructure for walking and biking in the main streets district.

Complete Streets: Aligning with the Friends of Melnea Cass Boulevard to ensure that the redesign of Melnea Cass Boulevard reflects community wants and needs, saves trees to promote environmental health, and reduces the risk for people walking and biking along the boulevard.

Why is this important?

These projects are important because they address the social determinants of health, which refer to the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age. These circumstances are shaped by the distribution of money, power and resources at global, national and local levels. Our project areas work to reduce barriers to healthy living and increase access to health opportunities. The project strategies are long-term, sustainable, impactful ways to improve community health in Roxbury.

Why should you be involved?

As a Roxbury resident or a community organization, we need your voice to help influence how these projects happen. Understanding neighborhood priorities and needs helps us advocate for improvements and projects that will more effectively benefit the Roxbury area.  If you are interested in getting more involved with Roxbury in Motion, we invite you to take this short survey.