New Health & Nature Fellowship launched in Atlanta to enhance well-being of children and families

The Children & Nature Network has launched a new Health & Nature Fellowship program, designed to tap into the power of local knowledge to improve the health and well-being of children and families.

Since 2017, C&NN has offered national technical assistance to cities and school districts interested in creating equitable access to the proven benefits of nature.

“Through our Cities Connecting Children to Nature partnership with the National League of Cities, communities across the U.S. are using equity-based nature connection strategies to improve community health and educational outcomes,” says Sarah Milligan-Toffler, President and CEO of the Children & Nature Network.  “A local Health & Nature Fellow can bring to the table relationships that we don’t have and make sure that diverse voices from deep within the community are heard,” continues Sarah. “We believe grounding our national technical assistance model with local leadership will help communities make more progress, more quickly.”

C&NN’s inaugural Health & Nature Fellowship is being launched in Atlanta, Georgia, with support from The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. 

“With leadership from Atlanta’s Health & Nature Fellow, children and families will create new and stronger relationships with parks, greenspaces, trails and streams in the region,” said John Bare of The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation. “Time spent outdoors is good medicine for us all.”

Atlanta is one of 30 cities in the national Cities Connecting Children to Nature initiative; within the region, there are dozens of cross-sector partners working to improve community health and well-being, making it an ideal location to launch and evaluate the impact of a Health & Nature Fellow. Atlanta will also host the Children & Nature Network’s 2022 international conference—the largest gathering of nature connection advocates in the world, made possible in part with support from Blank Family Foundation. 

Atlanta’s Health & Nature Fellow

From dozens of outstanding Atlanta-area applicants, Charmaine Godley was selected as C&NN’s first Health & Nature Fellow. The main focus of Charmaine’s work will be to advance equitable access to nature to enhance the health and well-being of children and families throughout the Atlanta metropolitan region. She will primarily support green schoolyard program development in and around the City of Atlanta, which is part of a new CCCN Green Schoolyards Technical Assistance Cohort.

Charmaine has decades of program, administrative and evaluation experience in education and human services, including 15 years advancing educational supports to improve equitable access to families in communities with the greatest need. She has coordinated and facilitated trainings nationally and assisted in the creation of the Birth through Five Education degree program at Georgia State University. She completed her undergraduate studies in family and consumer sciences and holds a Master of Educational Leadership degree from Georgia State University. Charmaine participated in an early childhood study tour to Reggio Emilia, Italy and continues to use these enriching experiences and a nature-based and environmental focus to impact critical teaching and learning practices.

“We feel incredibly lucky to have someone with Charmaine’s talent, experience and proven leadership stepping into our first Health & Nature Fellowship,” says Jaime Zaplatosch, Director of Green Schoolyards for Healthy Communities for the Children & Nature Network. “Not only will she help the Atlanta region make real progress in improving the health and well-being of children and families through green schoolyards and other strategies, she will help us refine our fellowship model, which we hope to expand to other cities.”

About Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation

Over the past 25 years, The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation has granted more than $800 million and is now committed to significantly accelerating the impact of its philanthropy over the next 10+ years.

The Blank Family Foundation Board has identified three new collective areas of giving: Youth Development, Democracy and Environment. The Foundation’s work will continue to prioritize Georgia (with a focus on Atlanta) and Montana, while also considering the potential for greater national impact and influence. The Foundation will continue to oversee a large portfolio of Founder-led initiatives and guide the Associate-led giving committees operating across the Blank Family of Businesses. 

Mr. Blank, chairman of the foundation, co-founded The Home Depot, the world’s largest home improvement retailer, in 1978 and retired from the company as co-chairman in 2001.

For more information, please visit www.blankfoundation.org.

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