This has been a lively discussion about community organizers and why they matter.  I thought I would add a story to showcase the role of organizers, the different kinds of impacts they have, and the different kinds of people who end-up as organizers.  I’m hoping that others will add their own stories, so we can underscore how deep and wide the culture of organizing is, and how many different kinds of people are organizing in communities, large and small, across the country.  Here’s the story-from rural California, north of Sacramento…

The Wal-Mart in Anderson, Calif., may look like any other. But thanks to community organizers, several check-out lanes are now lined with healthy snacks - trail mix, granola bars, dried cranberries, diced peaches, and animal crackers - instead of the junk food that normally populates the impulse-buy aisle.

The organizers responsible for this progress probably don’t fit the harsh stereotypes of the profession we’ve been hearing about recently. They’re just regular neighborhood students - part of Kids Make A Stand, a project to promote healthy eating in Shasta County.

The students made a pretty compelling case to store manager Tim Trimble that the healthy snacks would help develop their bodies and minds.

“They put me on the spot in a big way, but in a good way,” Trimble told the Redding Record-Searchlight newspaper.

The students designed the “Kids Healthy Choices” stands in two check-out aisles and hoped people would respond. The reaction has been phenomenal. Since the project began, sales of the healthy snacks have doubled.

The kids of Anderson continue organizing for positive change. They’ve made presentations to the managers of the Wal-Mart stores in Redding and Red Bluff, who are replicating the healthy food aisles in their own stores. The also plan to lobby the Anderson City Council for an ordinance to have healthy food sections in every store in the area.

Kids Make A Stand is a project of the South Shasta Healthy Eating, Active Communities (HEAC) initiative. HEAC is a four-year, $26-million initiative to combat childhood obesity, spearheaded by The California Endowment. The project increases opportunities for physical activity and healthy eating throughout California and develops policies to reduce the risk factors for diabetes and obesity.

Kids Make A Stand is one of many efforts Shasta County HEAC has undertaken, and one of several that show the power of young people when they’re organized and focused on making change. In another example, young people’s organized efforts helped convince the City of Anderson to install sidewalks along the road to a skate park and pressed the Anderson parks director to refurbish park restrooms and replace basketball nets. They have helped farmers in unincorporated Happy Valley create a trail map to encourage purchase of local produce and to preserve agriculture in the community. Farmers report an increase in visits to their farms.

These projects are making a big difference in the area.  It’s the organizers and those who participate that make the difference.

“HEAC is becoming part of the psyche of this community,” says Sheryl Vietti of Shasta County Public Health, a partner in the Shasta County HEAC project. “There’s a growing awareness that people care about healthy eating and physical activity. And the community has been receptive and responsive to all of our efforts.”

Please share your stories of successful organizing in the comments.

Judith Bell is president of PolicyLink and an experienced organizer for policy change.

Photo of Kids Make A Stand students by Michael Woodward, reporter, Anderson Valley Post. From left to right, Jonni Hinton, Emily LaFayette, Ally LaFayette, James LaRiza and Rebecca LaRiza.