In 2021, VFHY launched a new funding opportunity for organizations committed to preventing youth tobacco use: the Community Innovation Grant.

VFHY’s twenty-year history of funding evidence-based tobacco prevention programs for youth across the state has resulted in dramatic decreases in tobacco use reported among middle and high school age children in Virginia. Even with this success, the creation of the Community Innovation Grant is VFHY’s commitment to diversifying the types of organizations supported and empowers creative and forward-thinking projects.

As a result, VFHY has funded a more diverse class of grantees than ever before during the 2021 – 2024 grant cycle.

Community Innovation grantees design and implement community projects to reduce tobacco, nicotine, and vaping product use among a specific youth population. An important component of Community Innovation is to develop and implement innovative practices and to document lessons learned so that others might benefit from their experiences.

VFHY is accepting proposals for the next cycle of Community Innovation grants from August 28 to October 23. Read on to learn how two Community Innovation grantees are implementing creative projects in their communities.

Region Ten Community Services Board (Charlottesville)

UVA Cancer Center
(Wise County)

Region Ten Community Services Board in Charlottesville was drawn to the Community Innovation Grant because of the creativity it encourages.

Region Ten has partnered with Light House Studio, a local nonprofit that teaches filmmaking skills to youth, to host workshops for middle and high school students in Charlottesville. First, students learn about the dangers of tobacco use through VFHY’s tobacco prevention lesson plans, along with information about how to effectively deliver a message and encourage behavior change. Then, students learn storytelling, filmmaking, and editing techniques from Light House Studio.

The project culminates with a friendly competition. Students use what they have learned throughout the workshop to create public service announcements about the harms of vaping and nicotine use. The PSAs were shared online, and community members voted on their favorite.

A major reason Region Ten applied for the Community Innovation is its flexibility: it allows them to use funds to offer meals and transportation to participants so the program is accessible to all students.

It also lets Region Ten provide incentives, such as gift cards to the winners of the PSA competition. Through implementing this project, Region Ten has learned the importance of incentives for attracting youth and appreciating them for sharing their time, energy, and creativity with the community.

For the UVA Cancer Center in Wise County, the Family-Based Health Promotion to Prevent Tobacco Use, or FamHealth, project has truly been a community effort.

FamHealth was developed in response to a need identified by the Cancer Center Without Walls Southwest Virginia Community Advisory Board: a way to stop the generational cycle of tobacco use, reaching both youth and their parents. The project began to take shape when UVA Cancer Center started a collaboration with UVA Wise and Virginia Cooperative Extension, bringing together several unique skillsets and perspectives.

The project draws on UVA Wise’s existing relationship with local schools. UVA Wise students serve as peer mentors to students from Coeburn Middle School, meeting monthly to talk with them about the risks of tobacco use, tobacco prevention, resisting peer pressure, and more. The semester culminates in a youth-directed project in which the Coeburn students share what they have learned.

Throughout the application process and the first year of the project, the team at the UVA Cancer Center realized the importance of strong, supportive community partnerships. Partners should learn from each other and leverage each other’s strengths. UVA Wise’s presence in the schools through its physical education program provided a natural connection between the Cancer Center and the middle school students.

The UVA Cancer Center team appreciates the flexibility of the Community Innovation grant, which allows them to be creative and try things they could not in the past. In the coming year, they plan to create a supplemental guide to support the peer mentorship program.

If these stories inspired ideas of how your organization could use a Community Innovation grant, learn more and apply here. Applications are due by October 23, 2023.