Mission Statement

La Salle University has, as central to its mission, the commitment to prepare students for “informed service and progressive leadership in their communities” and the University is likewise committed to providing “learning experiences in both traditional and non-traditional settings,” continuing “to foster an atmosphere supportive of interdisciplinary learning,” and supporting “co-curricular opportunities which are designed to stimulate significant change and growth in the social, emotional, spiritual and physical development of students.” Students, and the faculty who teach and learn with them, are encouraged to “openly bear witness to their convictions on world peace and social justice.” In “The Will to Excel,” our strategic plan [updated 2012], La Salle further articulates how students, faculty, administrators and staff – “all members of the La Salle community” – should “engage in service, with a special focus on service to our local neighborhood and to the poor and underserved.” We should, according to this strategic plan, “commit to curricular and co-curricular initiatives that have service to the larger community as a central and valued goal.” La Salle University should “develop a community engagement and revitalization plan” involving improving schools, developing partnerships with churches, local and state government, and community organizations, and the local business community in such a way that the university “will create and promote its [our neighborhood’s] competitive advantages and be universally recognized among all regional constituencies as a readily accessible, high-quality, and responsive resource vital to the economic, social, and cultural growth and development of Philadelphia.

With these tenets of La Salle University’s mission and “Will to Excel” in mind, The La Salle University Neighborhood Health and Nutrition Project – an interdisciplinary project linking faculty, students, administrators, staff, and community partners in research, service, and advocacy – has at its core a University/Neighborhood partnership intended to determine how improved access to affordable fresh and healthy food at The Fresh Grocer supermarket can, in fact, act as a vehicle to assist in the reduction of “health disparities, disproportionately high rate of disease and other health problems among low income communities” which are all too common in urban neighborhoods . However, while access to healthy foods is a necessary tool for improvement in the overall health of the community, recent research suggests that it is not sufficient. The mission of this project is to ask how the University and The Fresh Grocer, in partnership together, can use our collective resources and to work with neighbors and neighborhood organizations towards improved health and nutrition in our immediate neighborhood.

Follow

Browse the Neighborhood Health and Nutrition Project Collections:

Advocacy Committee

Community Mapping and Partnership Committee

Education Committee

Research Committee

Service Learning Committee