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Working on Wellness Environments (WOW-E) is a Texas A&M AgriLife Extension multidisciplinary community development program
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Zapata Health Youth Ambassadors to Improve Romeo T. Flores Park with 2021 WOW-E Community Challenge Grant

October 22, 2021 by Kailey

Tell us what you think about the Pop-Up Demonstration and Romeo T. Flores Park. Let us know here: tx.ag/parkPopUp (Link will be open between 10/23/2021 at 10:00am – 10/25/2021 at 11:59pm)


The Zapata Health Youth Ambassadors are thrilled to announce they were selected to receive the 2021 WOW-E Community Challenge grant. These are community grants supporting increased physical activity levels and improved access to healthy foods in five Texas counties: Hudspeth, Maverick, Starr, Webb, and Zapata.

The Zapata project provides technical assistance to install temporary crosswalks connecting the Romeo T. Flores Park and activate unused spaces within the park. This offers multiple potential benefits, like increasing pedestrian and cyclist safety, encouraging physical activity, and increasing park usage. This will help Zapata feel more like a connected community by temporarily improving the park’s appearance and encouraging people to use the park more often.

Pop-up projects like this are an important part of community change because they are relatively easy, low-cost, and temporary. These sorts of demonstrations can serve as pilot tests for more permanent and future changes. Feedback from the community is essential for measuring the project’s success. With that information, the Zapata Health Youth Ambassadors can make recommendations to the County Commissioners encouraging similar projects in other Zapata parks.

With assistance from other community members and Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Zapata County, the Zapata Health Youth Ambassadors will tackle this project from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Oct. 23-24.

“We are incredibly proud that Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Working on Wellness Environments selected the Zapata Health Youth Ambassadors to receive this grant, made possible with funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,” said Sammy Luera, Extension Health Agent. “The WOW-E Community Challenge is an initiative to jump-start community efforts utilizing policy, system, and environmental changes and we hope to see wonderful results from our efforts.”

The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension WOW-E Community Challenge funds local projects that have one or more of these four goals:

  • Enhance healthier food access and sales
  • Establish health nutrition and physical activity standards in community places
  • Implement efforts to establish new or improved active transportation

The challenge is part of the WOW-E work. They take a collaborative approach promoting increased physical activity levels and improved access to healthy foods. This project prioritizes local solutions and transformative change to health-related challenges in Texas communities. To learn more about the WOW-E Community Challenge, visit wowe.tamu.edu/pse/wowecc. 


Filed Under: Blog, Zapata County Tagged With: Agrilife Extension, Community Challenge 2021, PSE, wowe, Zapata County

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