Botanical garden wins community health award

The Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Henrico County has received a $10,000 prize for a project aimed at bringing healthy food to inner-city neighborhoods.

The botanical garden’s GrowBox project won the 2017 Community Care Award given annually to organizations with innovative ideas for enhancing community health and wellness in Richmond.

GrowBox is designed improve food access by growing produce in a mobile trailer. The $10,000 prize was presented by UnitedHealthcare, one of the sponsors of the awards.

Five finalists for the award presented their project ideas on Tuesday to a panel of business leaders and health care experts.

In addition to botanical garden, the finalists included:

Aviant Health
BOHO Cycle Studio & BOHO Core
Sneeds Nursery
Woofy Wellness Ranch LLC

UnitedHealthcare partnered with BizWorks Enterprise Center and UnBoundRVA to promote the awards.

The panel of judges included:

Veronica Nugent, owner of Simply Ballroom dance studio (the 2016 winner)
Beth Bortz, president and CEO of the Virginia Center for Health Innovation
Doug Gray, executive director, Virginia Association of Health Plans
Jay Markiewicz, executive director of entrepreneurship programs, VCU School of Business
Marianne Randazzo, vice president of sales and account managment, UnitedHealthcare of the Mid-Atlantic