My mother’s brush with death started out innocuously. She had a persistent “wheezing,” and while—as the days passed by and it turned into a cough—she knew it probably should have gone away by that time, it took too much energy to catch the required two buses to visit her physician. It could wait a little longer, she reasoned.

When looking for examples of local initiatives to promote healthy food access, examples abound of community gardens, farmers’ markets and expanded produce offerings in local stores. But the work of NeighborWorks Umpqua stands out for its out-of-the-box and comprehensive approach—ranging from an initiative to encourage and support backyard vegetable gardens to a diverse partnership focusing on channeling fresh, local seafood to more local tables rather than into the global export market.